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Añil
''Indigofera suffruticosa'', commonly known as Guatemalan indigo, small-leaved indigo (Sierra Leone), West Indian indigo, wild indigo, and anil, is a flowering plant in the pea family, Fabaceae. ''Anil'' is native to the subtropical and tropical Americas, including the Southern United States, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and South America as far south as northern Argentina. This species has been widely introduced to other parts of the world and today has a pantropical distribution. It is an erect branching shrub growing to tall with pinnate leaves, and is commonly found growing in dry, highly disturbed areas such as roadsides and fallow fields. ''Anil'' is commonly used as a source for indigo dye, and if mixed with Palygorskite clays, can produce Maya blue, a pigment used by the Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus compri ...
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Philip Miller
Philip Miller Royal Society, FRS (1691 – 18 December 1771) was an English botany, botanist and gardener of Scottish descent. Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden for nearly 50 years from 1722, and wrote the highly popular ''The Gardeners Dictionary''. Life Born in Deptford or Greenwich, Miller was chief gardener at the Chelsea Physic Garden from 1722 until he was pressured to retire shortly before his death. According to the botanist Peter Collinson (botanist), Peter Collinson, who visited the physic garden in July 1764 and recorded his observation in his commonplace books, Miller "has raised the reputation of the Chelsea Garden so much that it excels all the gardens of Europe for its amazing variety of plants of all orders and classes and from all climates..." He wrote ''The Gardener's and Florists Dictionary or a Complete System of Horticulture'' (1724) and The Gardeners Dictionary, ''The Gardener's Dictionary containing the Methods of Cultivating and Im ...
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Leaf
A leaf (: leaves) is a principal appendage of the plant stem, stem of a vascular plant, usually borne laterally above ground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, stem, flower, and fruit collectively form the Shoot (botany), shoot system. In most leaves, the primary Photosynthesis, photosynthetic Tissue (biology), tissue is the palisade mesophyll and is located on the upper side of the blade or lamina of the leaf, but in some species, including the mature foliage of ''Eucalyptus'', palisade mesophyll is present on both sides and the leaves are said to be isobilateral. The leaf is an integral part of the stem system, and most leaves are flattened and have distinct upper (Glossary of botanical terms#adaxial, adaxial) and lower (Glossary of botanical terms#abaxial, abaxial) surfaces that differ in color, Trichome, hairiness, the number of stomata (pores that intake and output gases), the amount and ...
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Flora Of Central America
Flora (: floras or florae) is all the plant life present in a particular region or time, generally the naturally occurring ( indigenous) native plants. The corresponding term for animals is ''fauna'', and for fungi, it is '' funga''. Sometimes bacteria and fungi are also referred to as flora as in the terms ''gut flora'' or ''skin flora'' for purposes of specificity. Etymology The word "flora" comes from the Latin name of Flora, the goddess of plants, flowers, and fertility in Roman mythology. The technical term "flora" is then derived from a metonymy of this goddess at the end of the sixteenth century. It was first used in poetry to denote the natural vegetation of an area, but soon also assumed the meaning of a work cataloguing such vegetation. Moreover, "Flora" was used to refer to the flowers of an artificial garden in the seventeenth century. The distinction between vegetation (the general appearance of a community) and flora (the taxonomic composition of a community) wa ...
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Plant Dyes
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria to produce sugars from carbon dioxide and water, using the green pigment chlorophyll. Exceptions are parasitic plants that have lost the genes for chlorophyll and photosynthesis, and obtain their energy from other plants or fungi. Most plants are multicellular, except for some green algae. Historically, as in Aristotle's biology, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi. Definitions have narrowed since then; current definitions exclude fungi and some of the algae. By the definition used in this article, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (green plants), which consists of the green algae and the embryophytes or land plants (hornworts, liverworts, mosses, lycophytes, ferns, conifers and other gymnospe ...
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Indigofera
''Indigofera'' is a large genus of over 750 species of flowering plants belonging to the pea family Fabaceae. They are widely distributed throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Description ''Indigofera'' is a varied genus that has shown unique characteristics making it an interesting candidate as a potential perennial crop. Specifically, there is diverse variation among species with a number of unique characteristics. Some examples of this diversity include differences in pericarp thickness, fruit type, and flowering morphology. The unique characteristics it has displayed include potential for mixed smallholder systems with at least one other species and a resilience that allows for constant nitrogen uptake despite varying conditions. Tree Species of ''Indigofera'' are mostly shrubs, though some are small trees or herbaceous perennials or annuals. The branches are covered with silky hairs. Most of them have pinnate leaves made of three foliolates with ...
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Mesoamerica
Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area that begins in the southern part of North America and extends to the Pacific coast of Central America, thus comprising the lands of central and southern Mexico, all of Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua and northwestern part of Costa Rica. As a cultural area, Mesoamerica is defined by a mosaic of cultural traits developed and shared by its indigenous cultures. In the pre-Columbian era, many Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous societies flourished in Mesoamerica for more than 3,000 years before the Spanish colonization of the Americas began on Hispaniola in 1493. In world history, Mesoamerica was the site of two historical transformations: (i) primary urban generation, and (ii) the formation of New World cultures from the mixtures of the indigenous Mesoamerican peoples with the European, African, and Asian peoples who were introduced by the Spanish colonization of the Americas. Mesoameri ...
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Pigment
A pigment is a powder used to add or alter color or change visual appearance. Pigments are completely or nearly solubility, insoluble and reactivity (chemistry), chemically unreactive in water or another medium; in contrast, dyes are colored substances which are soluble or go into solution at some stage in their use. Dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compound, inorganic. Pigments of prehistoric and historic value include ochre, charcoal, and lapis lazuli. Economic impact In 2006, around 7.4 million tons of inorganic chemistry, inorganic, organic chemistry, organic, and special pigments were marketed worldwide. According to an April 2018 report by ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', the estimated value of the pigment industry globally is $30 billion. The value of titanium dioxide – used to enhance the white brightness of many products – was placed at $13.2 billion per year, while the color Ferrari red is valued at $300 million each yea ...
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Maya Blue
Maya blue () is a unique bright turquoise or azure blue pigment manufactured by cultures of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, such as the Mayas and Aztecs, during a period extending from approximately the 8th century to around 1860 CE. It is found in mural paintings on architectural buildings, ceramic pieces, sculptures, codices, and even in post-conquest Indochristian artworks and mural decorations. Manufacture The Maya blue pigment is a composite of organic and inorganic constituents, primarily indigo dyes derived from the leaves of anil (''Indigofera suffruticosa'', called ''ch'oj'' in Mayan) plants combined with palygorskite, a natural clay and type of fuller's earth. Palygorskite is most common in the Southern United States, but is not known to exist in abundant deposits in Mesoamerica.Arnold (2005); Haude (1997). Smaller trace amounts of other mineral additives have also been identified. Historical use Maya blue first appeared around 800, and it was still used in the 16th c ...
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Clay
Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impurities, such as a reddish or brownish colour from small amounts of iron oxide. Clays develop plasticity (physics), plasticity when wet but can be hardened through Pottery#Firing, firing. Clay is the longest-known ceramic material. Prehistoric humans discovered the useful properties of clay and used it for making pottery. Some of the earliest pottery shards have been radiocarbon dating, dated to around 14,000 BCE, and Clay tablet, clay tablets were the first known writing medium. Clay is used in many modern industrial processes, such as paper making, cement production, and chemical filtration, filtering. Between one-half and two-thirds of the world's population live or work in buildings made with clay, often baked into brick, as an essenti ...
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Palygorskite
Palygorskite (Russian: Палыгорскит) or attapulgite is a magnesium aluminium phyllosilicate with the chemical formula ) that occurs in a type of clay soil common to the Southeastern United States. It is one of the types of fuller's earth. Some smaller deposits of this mineral can be found in Mexico, where its use is tied to the manufacture of Maya blue in pre-Columbian times. Name Palygorskite was first described in 1862 for a deposit at Palygorskaya on the Popovka River, Middle Urals, Permskaya Oblast, Russia. The synonym ''attapulgite'' is derived from the U.S. town of Attapulgus, in the extreme southwest corner of the state of Georgia, where the mineral is abundant and surface-mined. Origin Five processes for the genesis of palygorskite were discussed in the older literature: # Formation under arid conditions, # Formation connected with the weathering of basalt, # Hydrothermal genesis, # Synsedimentary (during sedimentary deposition) authigenesis, # Postsedi ...
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Indigo Dye
Indigo dye is an organic compound with a distinctive indigo, blue color. Indigo is a natural dye obtained from the leaves of some plants of the Indigofera#Uses, ''Indigofera'' genus, in particular ''Indigofera tinctoria''. Dye-bearing ''Indigofera'' plants were once common throughout the world. It is now produced via chemical routes. Blue colorants are rare. Since indigo is insoluble, it is also referred to as a pigment (C.I. Pigment Blue 66, C.I.). Most indigo dye produced today is chemical synthesis, synthetic, constituting around 80,000 tonnes each year, as of 2023. It is most commonly associated with the production of denim cloth and jeans, blue jeans, where its properties allow for effects such as stone washing and stone washing#Acid-washed jeans, acid washing to be applied quickly. Uses The primary use for indigo is as a dye for cotton yarn, mainly used in the production of denim cloth suitable for blue jeans; on average, a pair of blue jeans requires to of dye. Smal ...
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