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Rubia tinctorum
Also called Madder, Indian Madder
Dyer's madder is a climbing, scrambling perennial in the coffee family, grown mainly for the red dye in its roots. It needs a sunny spot, loamy soil that stays evenly moist, and a long season to develop roots worth harvesting.
Rubia tinctorum, the rose madder or common madder or dyer's madder, is a herbaceous perennial plant species belonging to the bedstraw and coffee family Rubiaceae. The type genus of the whole Rubiaceae family of around 80 flowering plants is called Rubia.
It has been used since ancient times as a vegetable red dye 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, most commonly alum. Madder can be fermented for dyeing as well (Fleurs de garance). In France, the remains were used to produce a spirit.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Rubia tinctorum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
