Editor's note: From the deep sea to the mountains, from deserts to rainforests, plant imprints are found everywhere on earth. A world of changing years, climate change, geological movement, habitat change, plants that have endured and remain diverse in evolution. Voice of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Wuhan Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences jointly opened "Flowers and Flowers of All Things", where we pay attention to the survival, competition, reproduction and death of plants, display the strange and colorful nature of the natural world, interpret the thousands of meteorological phenomena of life, explore the magical secret of life, and pay tribute to this silent and vigorous world.
"The heavens and the earth are yellow, and the universe is flooded." This is the opening sentence of the Thousand Character Text, in which "Heaven and Earth Xuan Huang" comes from the "Heaven and Earth Xuan Huang" in the I Ching. In ancient times, yellow was considered to be the color of the earth, representing both the yellow of the land and the yellow of crops when they were ripe, and was a color favored and respected by people. At the same time, it is also the color of the empress's clothing, which is extremely honorable. In nature, there are many plants used to dye yellow, mainly gardenia, ground yellow, top yellow, yellow barberry, tulip and so on. Yellowing of natural plants is not only popular in ancient times, but also in modern times.
Gardenia jasminoides Ellis, also known as water branches and mountain yellow branches, is an evergreen shrub of the genus Gardenia in the family Rubiaceae. Its flowers are fragrant, usually borne single-flowered at the top of the branches; the fruit is yellow or orange-red, with winged longitudinal edges. Gardenia is dyed because the fruit contains the yellow pigment "tibetan acid", which can make a yellow dye and produce a yellowish reddish glow. According to the "Flora of China" record, gardenia is widely distributed, different growth environments, gardenia habits, leaf type, fruit type, etc. have some variations, mainly can be divided into two types: one is usually called "mountain gardenia", the fruit is ovate or nearly spherical, smaller, more suitable for medicinal use; the other type is often called "water gardenia", the fruit oval or oblong, larger is more suitable for dyes.
Since the Western Zhou Dynasty, gardenia has become the main material for dyeing yellow, and after the ripe fruit is soaked and boiled, it can be directly dyed with bright yellow color, which can be used as a natural food coloring additive and can dye textiles. By the Han Dynasty, gardenia and red-dyed madder, these two dyeing materials as cash crops, were widely cultivated, and the "Chronicle of Cargo Breeding" described: "Thousands of acres of qianxi, thousands of acres of ginger leeks, this person and a thousand households hou and so on." It can be seen that the social status and economic income of the farmers who grow these dyeing materials are equal to those of thousands of households. Gardenia can also be added mordant to dye a yellow color of different shades such as tender yellow, bright yellow, and dark yellow. The "golden yellow embroidery thread and earthy yellow silk fabric excavated from the Mawangdui No. 1 Han Tomb in Changsha were determined and analyzed by gardenia plant dye, which was dyed directly or by mordant dyeing. "However, as a dye, gardenia is good in color, but the biggest disadvantage is that it is not resistant to sunlight.
Gardenia Fruit (Photo: Zhang Lijun)
Gardenia fruit stained yellow
Rehmannia glutinosa (Gaert.) Libosch. ex Fisch. et Mey.) is an herbaceous plant of the genus Lydangaceae. The whole plant is densely covered with gray-white multicellular long soft hairs and glandular hairs; the leaves are usually integrated at the base of the stem in a rosette; the flowers are arranged in a total inflorescence at the top of the stem, the flowers are like small trumpets, the corolla tube is purple-red on the outside, covered with multicellular long soft hairs, the corolla is lobed, the inner surface is yellow-purple, the outside is purple-red, and both sides are multicellular long soft hairs; the rhizome is fleshy and yellow when fresh. Rehmannia can be dyed because its roots contain yellow pigments, which can be dyed yellow after mashing and boiling.
In ancient times, with Hedong (present-day Yongji, Shanxi) as the center, a special dyeing bureau was set up, which was mainly used to dye imperial yellow for the use of the imperial family. Jia Sixun recorded the Hedong Dyeing Imperial Yellow Method in the Qi Min Zhi Shu. The raw material for this royal dyeing method is to mix the roots of ground yellow with the ash of grass and wood to make a dyeing juice containing yellow pigment. In terms of dosage of about three liters of ground yellow, dyed a horse yellow, the dye production rate is relatively objective.
The root of rehmannia (Image source: China Plant Image Library)
Flowers of ground yellow (Source: China Plant Image Library)
Maclura tricuspidata Carrierere, also known as garnet, is a deciduous shrub or small tree of the genus Zanthoxylum. Its hermaphroditic, male and female inflorescences are spherical head-shaped inflorescences, the fruit is fleshy spherical polyfloral fruit, orange-red when ripe. The center of the wood is yellow, which can be used as a yellow dye, and the color of the dye is reddish yellow, called garnet yellow.
The fabric dyed by the garnet wood, yellow with red light, the color is very dazzling, since the Sui and Tang Dynasties, yellow is the color of the emperor's clothes. The Six Classics of Tang records that "Emperor Wen of Sui wore a yellow robe and a scarf to listen to the dynasty." During the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang, it was stipulated that "forbidden soldiers shall not use red and yellow as miscellaneous clothing." The Ming Dynasty explicitly forbade courtiers to wear yellow clothes, including turmeric, willow yellow and other yellow lines. In the Qing Dynasty, minghuang was used as a special color for imperial clothing.
Garnet tree trunk (Source: China Plant Image Library)
Garnet fruit (Source: China Plant Image Library)
Phellodendron amurenseRupr. is a tall deciduous tree of the genus Bergberry in the family Rubiaceae, an ancient relict plant of the Tertiary Period, a valuable timber tree species in mainland China. The bark of adult trees has a thick layer of wood plugs, light gray or grayish brown, and is the material used to make cork stoppers. The inner layer of the bark is thin, the color is bright yellow, the taste is very bitter, the texture is very sticky, and it can be used in medicine after being concocted, which is a traditional Chinese herbal medicine called yellow barberry. The leaves are pinnate compound leaves, the leaflets are papery, and in autumn they change from green to bright yellow, and they are golden and brilliant, which is very beautiful. The fruit is spherical in shape, blue-black when ripe, and the seeds can be used to make soap and lubricating oil.
The yellow dyeing solution obtained from the yellow barberry wood can dye silk, cloth, wool and other fibers. As early as the Southern and Northern Dynasties period, yellow barberry dyeing was very popular. Bao Zhao once wrote a poem in "Difficulty in Planning to Walk", "The barberry dyes the yellow silk, and the yellow silk is chaotic and incurable". Berberine contains berberine, and the dyed clothes are not easily mothed by insects.
Barberry plant (Source: China Plant Image Library)
Barberry (Source: China Plant Image Library)
Curcuma aromatica is a perennial root herb of the genus Turmeric in the gingeraceae family; the plant is about 1 m tall; the rhizome is fleshy, yellow, and aromatic; the leaves are basal, the leaves are oblong, the leaf surface is hairless, and the leaf back has short soft hairs; the flower leaf is drawn from the rhizome alone, with sparse soft hairs, spike-like inflorescence cylindrical, the flowered bracts are pale green, the flowerless bracts are white with reddish; the corolla tube is funnel-shaped, the lobes are oblong, white with pink, and the lips are yellow.
Tulip's Flower (Image source: China Plant Image Library)
Tulip's plant (image source China Plant Image Library)
The fleshy rhizomes of tulips can be used to make a yellow dye to stain yellow. It can be used as both as an food coloring and as a dye to impregnate fabrics. As an food coloring, it can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty and used for bartending. Judging from the documents recorded in the Han Dynasty, the Yujin in the pre-Qin period was a tribute, very precious, and only the imperial court had the right to control and use it. It is recorded in the Book of Poetry, Daya Dry foothills: "Serpi Yu Zhan, the yellow stream is in the middle." This wine, made of wheat mixed with tulips, is golden in color and is known as the "Yellow Stream" and is used on major occasions such as Jongmyo shrine sacrifices.
Made as a yellow dye, the dyed silk fabric has a slight fragrance. The Compendium of Materia Medica, "Kusanagi" Volume XIV records that "Shi Zhen yue: There are two yujin. ...... This is the use of roots, its seedlings such as ginger, the size of its roots such as fingers, the elderly inch, the body circle has horizontal stripes, such as cicada abdomen, yellow outside and red inside, people dye with water, but also slightly aromatic. ”
In ancient times, yujin dyeing yellow also derived special words such as "yujin yellow" and "yujin skirt", which were written into poetry by literati and inkers. For example, Li Xun's "Huan Xi Sha": "Into the summer, it is better to make thin makeup, and the more Luo clothes fade golden"; Li Shangyin's "Peony": "Hanging hands randomly to carve jade pendants, beckoning the waist to dance tulip skirts".
In addition to the above plants, the ancients also often used locust flowers, turmeric, yellow oak, dense flowers and other plants to make yellow dyes yellow. With the development of the times, the yellow color enjoyed by the emperors in ancient times has now flown into the homes of ordinary people, whether it is the spring warm blossoms or the autumn and winter fruit season, pick a plant to dye a handkerchief by hand, and enjoy the beauty of nature's gifts.
bibliography:
1. HUANG Baokang. Colorful World—Plants and Dyeing[J].World of Life,2008,44-47.
2. Tan Guangwan. Research on ancient Chinese plant dyes[D].Northwest A&F University,2009.]
3. WANG Ying. Examination of the Names and Facts of Ancient Chinese Yellow-dyed Plants[D].Guangxi University for Nationalities,2016.
Source: Wuhan Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences