''Rubia tinctorum'', the rose madder or common madder or dyer's madder, is a

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

plant species belonging to the bedstraw and

coffee Coffee is a drink prepared from roasted coffee beans. Darkly colored, bitter, and slightly acidic, coffee has a stimulant, stimulating effect on humans, primarily due to its caffeine content. It is the most popular hot drink in the world. S ...

family

Rubiaceae The Rubiaceae are a family of flowering plants, commonly known as the coffee, madder, or bedstraw family. It consists of terrestrial trees, shrubs, lianas, or herbs that are recognizable by simple, opposite leaves with interpetiolar stipules ...

Description

Rubia tinctorum - Köhler–s Medizinal-Pflanzen-123

The common madder can grow up to 1.5 m in height. The

evergreen In botany, an evergreen is a plant which has foliage that remains green and functional through more than one growing season. This also pertains to plants that retain their foliage only in warm climates, and contrasts with deciduous plants, which ...

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

are approximately 5–10 cm long and 2–3 cm broad, produced in whorls of 4–7 starlike around the central stem. It climbs with tiny hooks at the leaves and stems. The flowers are small (3–5 mm across), with five pale yellow petals, in dense

raceme A raceme ( or ) or racemoid is an unbranched, indeterminate type of inflorescence bearing flowers having short floral stalks along the shoots that bear the flowers. The oldest flowers grow close to the base and new flowers are produced as the s ...

s, and appear from June to August, followed by small (4–6 mm diameter) red to black

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone or pit, although many pips or seeds may be present. Common examples are strawberries, raspb ...

. The

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

s can be over a metre long, up to 12 mm thick and the source of red

dye 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 an ...

s known as

rose madder Rose madder (also known as madder) is a red paint made from the pigment madder lake, a traditional lake pigment extracted from the common madder plant '' Rubia tinctorum''. Madder lake contains two organic red dyes: alizarin and purpurin. ...

and

Turkey red Turkey red is a color that was widely used to dye cotton in the 18th and 19th century. It was made using the root of the rubia plant, through a long and laborious process. It originated in India or Turkey, and was brought to Europe in the 1740s ...

. It prefers

loam Loam (in geology and soil science) is soil composed mostly of sand (particle size > ), silt (particle size > ), and a smaller amount of clay (particle size < ). By weight, its mineral composition is about 40–40–20% concentration of sand–sil ...

y soils (sand and clay soil) with a constant level of moisture. Madder is used as a food plant by the

larva A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle. The ...

e of some

Lepidoptera Lepidoptera ( ) is an order (biology), order of insects that includes butterfly, butterflies and moths (both are called lepidopterans). About 180,000 species of the Lepidoptera are described, in 126 Family (biology), families and 46 Taxonomic r ...

species including the hummingbird hawk moth.

Uses

It has been used since ancient times as a vegetable red

for leather, wool, cotton and silk. For dye production, the roots are harvested after two years. The outer red layer gives the common variety of the dye, the inner yellow layer the refined variety. The dye is fixed to the cloth with help of a

mordant A mordant or dye fixative is a substance used to set (i.e. bind) dyes on fabrics by forming a coordination complex with the dye, which then attaches to the fabric (or tissue). It may be used for dyeing fabrics or for intensifying stains in ...

, most commonly

alum An alum () is a type of chemical compound, usually a hydrated double salt, double sulfate salt (chemistry), salt of aluminium with the general chemical formula, formula , where is a valence (chemistry), monovalent cation such as potassium or a ...

. Madder can be fermented for dyeing as well (''Fleurs de garance''). In

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

, the remains were used to produce a spirit. The roots contain the acid ruberthyrin. By drying, fermenting, or a treatment with acids, this is changed to sugar,

alizarin Alizarin (also known as 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone, Mordant Red 11, C.I. 58000, and Turkey Red) is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Histori ...

and purpurin, which were first isolated by the French chemist

Pierre Jean Robiquet Pierre Jean Robiquet (13 January 1780 – 29 April 1840) was a French chemist. He laid founding work in identifying amino acids, the fundamental building blocks of proteins. He did this through recognizing the first of them, asparagine, in 1806 ...

in 1826. Purpurin is normally not coloured, but is red when dissolved in alkaline solutions. Mixed with clay and treated with

and

ammonia Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...

, it gives a brilliant red colourant (

madder lake Alizarin (also known as 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone, Mordant Red 11, C.I. 58000, and Turkey Red) is an organic compound with formula that has been used throughout history as a prominent red dye, principally for dyeing textile fabrics. Histori ...

). The pulverised roots can be dissolved in

sulfuric acid Sulfuric acid (American spelling and the preferred IUPAC name) or sulphuric acid ( Commonwealth spelling), known in antiquity as oil of vitriol, is a mineral acid composed of the elements sulfur, oxygen and hydrogen, with the molecular formu ...

, which leaves a dye called ''

garance Garance is a given name that is derived from , which is the French name of the plant ''Rubia tinctorum.'' Notable people with the name include: * Garance Doré (born 1975), French photographer * Garance Genicot (born 1974), Belgian-American econom ...

'' (the French name for madder) after drying. Another method of increasing the yield consisted of dissolving the roots in sulfuric acid after they had been used for dyeing. This produces a dye called '' garanceux''. By treating the pulverized roots with alcohol, colorine was produced. It contained 40–50 times the amount of

of the roots. The chemical name for the

pigment A pigment is a colored material that is completely or nearly insoluble in water. In contrast, dyes are typically soluble, at least at some stage in their use. Generally dyes are often organic compounds whereas pigments are often inorganic compo ...

, of the

anthraquinone Anthraquinone, also called anthracenedione or dioxoanthracene, is an aromatic organic compound with formula . Isomers include various quinone derivatives. The term anthraquinone however refers to the isomer, 9,10-anthraquinone (IUPAC: 9,10-dioxo ...

-group, and was used to make the

alizarine ink Alizarine ink was created in 1855 by Professor Christian August Leonhardi of Dresden, Germany, by adding alizarin dye (derived from the root of the madder plant) to conventional iron gall ink. This added an attractive coloration to the ink, which ...

in 1855 by Professor Leonhardi of

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

, Germany. In 1869, the German chemists Graebe and Liebermann synthesised artificial alizarin, which was produced industrially from 1871 onwards, effectively ending the cultivation of madder. In the 20th century, madder was only grown in some areas of France. The plant's roots contain several polyphenolic compounds, such as

1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone 1,3-Dihydroxyanthraquinone, also called purpuroxanthin or xanthopurpurin, is an organic compound with formula that occurs in the plant ''Rubia cordifolia'' (Indian madder). Padma S. Vankar, Rakhi Shanker, Debajit Mahanta and S.C. Tiwari (2008), ...

(purpuroxanthin),

1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone 1,4-Dihydroxyanthraquinone, also called quinizarin or Solvent Orange 86, is an organic compound derived from anthroquinone. Quinizarin is an orange or red-brown crystalline powder. It is formally derived from anthraquinone by replacement of two hy ...

(quinizarin),

1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone 1,2,4-Trihydroxyanthraquinone, commonly called purpurin, is an anthraquinone. It is a naturally occurring red/yellow dye. It is formally derived from 9,10-anthraquinone by replacement of three hydrogen atoms by hydroxyl (OH) groups. Purpurin is ...

(purpurin) and 1,2-dihydroxyanthraquinone (

). This last compound gives it its red colour to a textile dye known as

Rose madder Rose madder (also known as madder) is a red paint made from the pigment madder lake, a traditional lake pigment extracted from the common madder plant '' Rubia tinctorum''. Madder lake contains two organic red dyes: alizarin and purpurin. ...

. It was also used as a colourant, especially for paint, that is referred to as madder lake. The substance was also derived from another species, ''

Rubia cordifolia ''Rubia cordifolia'', often known as common madder or Indian madder, is a species of flowering plant in the coffee family, Rubiaceae. It has been cultivated for a red pigment derived from roots. Common names of this plant include manjistha in S ...

''.

History

Early evidence of

dyeing Dyeing is the application of dyes or pigments on textile materials such as fibers, yarns, and fabrics with the goal of achieving color with desired color fastness. Dyeing is normally done in a special solution containing dyes and particular ...

comes from

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

where a piece of cotton dyed with madder has been recovered from the archaeological site at

Mohenjo-daro Mohenjo-daro (; sd, موئن جو دڙو'', ''meaning 'Mound of the Dead Men';Manjishtha. It was used by hermits to dye their clothes saffron.

Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides ( grc-gre, Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, ; 40–90 AD), “the father of pharmacognosy”, was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of ''De materia medica'' (, On Medical Material) —a 5-vol ...

and

Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus (AD 23/2479), called Pliny the Elder (), was a Roman author, naturalist and natural philosopher, and naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and a friend of the emperor Vespasian. He wrote the encyclopedic '' ...

(De Re Natura) mention the plant (which the Romans called rubia passiva). In

Viking Age The Viking Age () was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonizing, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. It followed the Migration Period and the Ger ...

levels of

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, remains of both

woad ''Isatis tinctoria'', also called woad (), dyer's woad, or glastum, is a flowering plant in the family Brassicaceae (the mustard family) with a documented history of use as a blue dye and medicinal plant. Its genus name, Isatis, derives from ...

and madder have been excavated. The oldest European textiles dyed with madder come from the grave of the

Merovingian The Merovingian dynasty () was the ruling family of the Franks from the middle of the 5th century until 751. They first appear as "Kings of the Franks" in the Roman army of northern Gaul. By 509 they had united all the Franks and northern Gauli ...

queen Arnegundis in Saint-Denis near

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

(between 565 and 570 AD). In the "

Capitulare de villis Capitulare may mean: * a legislative text in separate chapters - see capitularium * certain liturgical books, notably: ** Evangeliarium ** Collectarium ** Antiphonary An antiphonary or antiphonal is one of the liturgical books intended for ...

" of

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...

, madder is mentioned as "warentiam". The

herbal A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them.Arber, p. 14. A herbal m ...

Hildegard of Bingen Hildegard of Bingen (german: Hildegard von Bingen; la, Hildegardis Bingensis; 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher ...

mentions the plant as well. The red coats of the British Redcoats were dyed with madder, after earlier being dyed with

cochineal The cochineal ( , ; ''Dactylopius coccus'') is a scale insect in the suborder Sternorrhyncha, from which the natural dye carmine is derived. A primarily sessility (motility), sessile parasitism, parasite native to tropical and subtropical Sout ...

. Madder is mentioned in the talmud (e.g., tractate Sabbath 61b) where the madder plant is termed "puah" in Arameic and translated into old French by Rashi (loc cit). Turkey red was a strong, very fast red dye for cotton obtained from madder root via a complicated multistep process involving "

sumac Sumac ( or ), also spelled sumach, is any of about 35 species of flowering plants in the genus ''Rhus'' and related genera in the cashew family (Anacardiaceae). Sumacs grow in subtropical and temperate regions throughout the world, including Eas ...

and oak galls, calf's blood, sheep's dung, oil, soda, alum, and a solution of tin." Turkey red was developed in India and spread to Turkey. Greek workers familiar with the methods of its production were brought to France in 1747, and Dutch and English spies soon discovered the secret. A sanitized version of Turkey red was being produced in Manchester by 1784, and roller-printed dress cottons with a Turkey red ground were fashionable in England by the 1820s.

Folk medicine

According to Culpeper's

, the plant is "an herb of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury (planet), Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Mars (mythology), Roman god of war. Mars is a terr ...

" and "hath an opening quality, and afterwards to bind and strengthen". The root was recommended in the treatment of yellow jaundice, obstruction of the

spleen The spleen is an organ found in almost all vertebrates. Similar in structure to a large lymph node, it acts primarily as a blood filter. The word spleen comes .

, the melancholy humour,

palsy Palsy is a medical term which refers to various types of paralysisDan Agin, ''More Than Genes: What Science Can Tell Us About Toxic Chemicals, Development, and the Risk to Our Children;; (2009), p. 172. or paresis, often accompanied by weakness and ...

sciatica Sciatica is pain going down the leg from the lower back. This pain may go down the back, outside, or front of the leg. Onset is often sudden following activities like heavy lifting, though gradual onset may also occur. The pain is often described ...

, and of

bruise A bruise, also known as a contusion, is a type of hematoma of tissue, the most common cause being capillaries damaged by trauma, causing localized bleeding that extravasates into the surrounding interstitial tissues. Most bruises occur close ...

s. The leaves were advised for women “'' that have not their courses''” and for the treatment of freckles and other discolorations of the skin.

Risks

Madder root may cause birth defects and miscarriages in humans when taken internally.Madder

WebMD WebMD is an American corporation known primarily as an online publisher of news and information pertaining to human health and well-being. The site includes information pertaining to drugs. It is one of the top healthcare websites. It was foun ...

References

External links

"Rubia.—Madder"
''

King's American Dispensatory ''King's American Dispensatory'' is a book first published in 1854 that covers the uses of herbs used in American medical practice, especially by those involved in eclectic medicine, which was the botanical school of medicine in the 19th to 20th ...

'', 1898. {{Taxonbar, from=Q163641 Flora of Europe Flora of Lebanon Plant dyes Plants described in 1753 tinctorum Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus