JOURNAL 



OF THE 



WASHINGTON ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 



Vol. VIII NOVEMBER 19, 1918 No. 19 



BOTANY. — Cosmos sulphureus, the xochipalli or flower paint of 

 the Aztecs. William Edwin Safford, Bureau of Plant 

 Industry. 



Vegetable dyes were used by the aborigines of all parts of 

 America for ornamenting their utensils, staining their bodies, or 

 coloring their baskets and fabrics. Many of the textiles found 

 in the prehistoric graves of Peru are remarkable for their beau- 

 tiful and permanent colors. Few of these, unfortunately, can be 

 traced to the plants from which they were derived. The intro- 

 duction of foreign dyes has been disastrous. Their cheapness 

 and the facihty with which they can be transported has caused 

 them to be widely adopted in place of native dyes, the prepa- 

 ration of which is fast becoming obsolete. The ancient Mexi- 

 cans made use of a number of beautiful pigments, mostly vege- 

 table, for the picture-writing of their celebrated codices. Nearly 

 aU of their colors can be identified. A crimson was obtained 

 from the cochineal iuvsect, reared upon a cactus {Nopalea cocci- 

 nellifera). This they called nocheztli, or ''prickly-pear-blood." 

 With it they sometimes combined other ingredients, especially 

 the leaves of a Melastomataceous plant called tezoatl, or tex- 

 huatl. From the reddish-yellow aril of the seeds of Bixa orel- 

 lana they derived a pigment called achiotl. This is now widely 

 used throughout the world, and is known commercially as an- 

 natto, or arnotto. A bright yellow was obtained from a leafless 

 parasitic plant, Cusciita tinctoria, called zacatlaxcalli. From log- 

 wood Haematoxylon campechianum, and the closely allied Hae- 



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