Quercitron is a

yellow Yellow is the color between green and orange on the spectrum of light. It is evoked by light with a dominant wavelength of roughly 575585 nm. It is a primary color in subtractive color systems, used in painting or color printing. In the R ...

natural dye Natural dyes are dyes or colorants derived from plants, invertebrates, or minerals. The majority of natural dyes are vegetable dyes from plant sources—roots, berries, bark, leaves, and wood—and other biological sources such as fungi. Archaeol ...

obtained from the bark of the Eastern Black Oak (''Quercus velutina''), a forest

tree In botany, a tree is a perennial plant with an elongated stem, or trunk, usually supporting branches and leaves. In some usages, the definition of a tree may be narrower, including only woody plants with secondary growth, plants that are ...

indigenous in

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...

. It was formerly called Dutch pink, English pink, or Italian pink. The name is a shortened form of quercicitron, from

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''quercus'', oak, and ''citron'', lemon, and was invented by

Edward Bancroft Edward Bartholomew Bancroft ( – September 7, 1821) was a Massachusetts-born physician and chemist who became a double agent, spying for both the United States and Great Britain while serving as secretary to the American Commission in Paris ...

(1744–1821), who by act of parliament in 1785 was granted special privileges in regard to the importation and use of the substance. The

dyestuff A dye is a colored substance that chemically bonds to the substrate to which it is being applied. This distinguishes dyes from pigments which do not chemically bind to the material they color. Dye is generally applied in an aqueous solution and ...

is prepared by grinding the bark in

mill Mill may refer to: Science and technology * * Mill (grinding) * Milling (machining) * Millwork * Textile mill * Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel * List of types of mill * Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...

s after it has been freed from its black epidermal layer, and sifting the product to separate the fibrous matter, the fine yellow powder which remains forming the quercitron of commerce. The ruddy-orange

decoction Decoction is a method of extraction by boiling herbal or plant material (which may include stems, roots, bark and rhizomes) to dissolve the chemicals of the material. It is the most common preparation method in various herbal-medicine systems. De ...

of quercitron contains

quercitannic acid Quercitannic acid is one of the two forms of tannic acid found in oak bark and leaves. The other form is called gallotannic acid and is found in oak galls. The quercitannic acid molecule is also present in quercitron, a yellow dye obtained from ...

, whence its use in

tanning Tanning may refer to: *Tanning (leather), treating animal skins to produce leather *Sun tanning, using the sun to darken pale skin **Indoor tanning, the use of artificial light in place of the sun **Sunless tanning, application of a stain or dye t ...

, and an active dyeing principle,

quercitrin Quercitrin is a glycoside formed from the flavonoid quercetin and the deoxy sugar rhamnose. Austrian chemist Heinrich Hlasiwetz (1825-1875) is remembered for his chemical analysis of quercitrin. Occurrence Quercitrin is a constituent of the ...

, C₂₁H₂₀O₁₁. The latter substance is a

glycoside In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...

, and in aqueous solution under the influence of mineral acids it yields

quercetin Quercetin is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It is found in many fruits, vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains; capers, red onions, and kale are common foods containing appreciable amounts of it. It has a bitter flavor a ...

, C₁₅H₁₀O₇, which is precipitated, and the methyl-

pentose In chemistry, a pentose is a monosaccharide (simple sugar) with five carbon atoms. The chemical formula of many pentoses is , and their molecular weight is 150.13 g/mol.rhamnose. Quercetin is a crystalline powder of a brilliant citron yellow color, entirely insoluble in cold water and dissolving only sparingly in hot water, but quite soluble in alcohol. Either by itself or in some form of its glucoside quercitrin, quercetin is found in several vegetable substances, among others in cutch, in Persian berries (''

Rhamnus cathartica ''Rhamnus cathartica'', the European buckthorn, common buckthorn, purging buckthorn, or just buckthorn, is a species of small tree in the flowering plant family Rhamnaceae. It is native to Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia, from the cen ...

''),

buckwheat Buckwheat (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), or common buckwheat, is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as '' Fago ...

leaves (''Fagopyrum esculentum''), Zante fustic wood (''

Rhus cotinus ''Cotinus coggygria'', syn. ''Rhus cotinus'', the European smoketree, Eurasian smoketree, smoke tree, smoke bush, Venetian sumach, or dyer's sumach, is a Eurasian species of flowering plant in the family Anacardiaceae. Description It is a multi ...

''), and in

rose petal A rose is either a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be e ...

s. Chemically, quercetin is a member of a fairly extensive class of natural coloring matters derived from phenyl benzoyl-pyrone or

flavone Flavone is an organic compound with the formula . A white solid, flavone is a derivative of chromone with a phenyl (Ph) substituent adjacent to the ether group. The compound is of little direct practical importance, but susbstituted derivatives, t ...

, the constitution of which followed on the researches of

Stanisław Kostanecki Stanisław Kostanecki (born 16 April 1860 in Myszaków, now in Poland then Kingdom of Prussia – 15 November 1910 in Würzburg) was a Polish organic chemist, professor who pioneered in vegetable dye chemistry e.g. curcumin. Known for Kostan ...

, A. G. Perkin, Herzig, Goldschmidt and others. Among the related, coloring matters are: chrysin from poplar buds,

apigenin Apigenin (4′,5,7-trihydroxyflavone), found in many plants, is a natural product belonging to the flavone class that is the aglycone of several naturally occurring glycosides. It is a yellow crystalline solid that has been used to dye wool. S ...

from

parsley Parsley, or garden parsley (''Petroselinum crispum'') is a species of flowering plant in the family Apiaceae that is native to the central and eastern Mediterranean region (Sardinia, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, Turkey, southern Italy, Greece, Por ...

luteolin Luteolin is a flavone, a type of flavonoid, with a yellow crystalline appearance. Luteolin is the principal yellow dye compound that is obtained from the plant ''Reseda luteola'', which has been used as a source of the dye since at least the fir ...

from weld, mignonette and dyer's broom,

fisetin Fisetin (7,3′,4′- flavon-3-ol) is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It can be found in many plants, where it serves as a yellow/ochre colouring agent. It is also found in many fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries, ...

from young fustic and

yellow cypress ''Callitropsis nootkatensis'', formerly known as ''Cupressus nootkatensis'' ( syn. ''Xanthocyparis nootkatensis'') is a species of trees in the cypress family native to the coastal regions of northwestern North America. This species goes by many ...

galangin Galangin is a flavonol, a type of flavonoid. Occurrence Galangin is found in high concentrations in plants like ''Alpinia officinarum'' (lesser galangal) and '' Helichrysum aureonitens''. It is also found in the rhizome of ''Alpinia galanga'' and ...

from

galangal Galangal () is a common name for several tropical rhizomatous spices. Differentiation The word ''galangal'', or its variant ''galanga'' or archaically ''galingale'', can refer in common usage to the aromatic rhizome of any of four plant spec ...

root, and

myricetin Myricetin is a member of the flavonoid class of polyphenolic compounds, with antioxidant properties. Common dietary sources include vegetables (including tomatoes), fruits (including oranges), nuts, berries, tea, and red wine. Myricetin is structu ...

from ''Nageia nagi''. In

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

in the late 1840s and early 1850s, according to the historian Philip Dillon Jordan:

References

{{Glycosides Flavonoid glycosides Plant dyes