INDIGOFERA 



TINCTORIA 



INDIGO-YIELDING FORMS 



Egyptian. I. articulate, Gouait, Illust., 1773, 49. This is /. argentea, Linn., Mant. PL, 



ii., 273, non Burm. ; I. spicata, Forsk. ; I. ccerulea, Roxb. Is the plant which 

 yields much of the indigo of Arabia and Egypt, still sometimes met with in 

 Western India and as far to the east as Bandelkhand and the Kistna highlands. 

 Was formerly the species most largely grown in the Bombay Presidency, but 

 nowadays is only occasionally seen under cultivation in Rajputana and Sind. 

 Train says that in the time of Roxburgh and Hamilton (1803-14) the Egyptian 

 indigo still survived as an Indian species (probably escaped from cultivation) in 

 Bihar, but now it seems to have quite disappeared from that region. 



I. longeracemosa, Boiuin, Herb. Baillon, in Bull. Soc. Linn. Paris, 1 883, pt. 

 i., 399 ; Prain and Baker, I.e. 144. In the letter by Prain, to which reference 

 has already been made, there occurs the following passage: "In Madagascar and 

 Zanzibar there is a species I. loHf/crtircmomi,. very distinct both from i. fint-- 

 torla and from I. mitimti-finn that is valued by the people of these islands 

 beyond all the other species they grow, and they grow the following : (a) and 

 chiefly r. .luff, (6) less often r. titictoria, (c) occasionally I. mtinutrnHa, and (d), 

 in the highlands of Madagascar, I. arreeta." Prain then adds that as long ago as 

 1875-0, Col. Beddome found this very species both in Travancore and Tinncvelly, 

 and subsequently it was found by Lawson in Travancore. 



Forms of I. tinctoria, Linn., Sp. PI., 1753, 751. Prain and Baker establish two chief 



Tinctoria. varieties of this species with several very distinct cultivated states under 

 these, some of which may have to be viewed as worthy of distinct specific 

 positions. The following abstract may be regarded as setting forth the salient 

 points : 



(a) uar. macrocarpa, DC. The special forms of this are : 



THE WILD PLANT, apparently unknown to Linnaeus or De Candolle. It was 



found in Nubia by Kotschy in 1841, and specimens which agree with it in every 



essential have also been found in Central India. Regarded as a distinct species 



its name would be I. Be-ryU, Vathe. [Cf. Duthie, Fl. Upper Gang. Plain, i., 255.] 



Madras Stock. THE SOUTHERN on MADRAS AND CEYLON cultivated stock. This is the 



plant dealt with by Linnaeus in his Flora Zeylanica, and by Burmann in his Flora 

 Indica. This particular form would thus appear to have been early cultivated in 

 Southern India, though recently it has very possibly been completely displaced 

 by i. fiiitmiti-Hita. " It was and still is the I. ttm-toria of the cultivators in the 

 Dutch Indies, where, however, the species is not now much in favour. Specimens 

 of this form, evidently feral after escape, have been communicated from many 

 places both within and beyond the limits of the area where it now is, or formerly 

 has been in cultivation." Prain and Baker, from whom the above has been 

 derived, add that they have seen specimens of this particular plant from the 

 Philippine Islands ; from North Queensland ; from the Laccadives, where it is 

 described as forming thickets that cover a great portion of Kadamum Island ; 

 finally from Merwara in Rajputana, where it is not, and probably never has 

 been cultivated. It is a wild plant in Merwara, growing by the sides of ravines, 

 and bears the vernacular name of jinjini. 



Northern Stock. THE NORTHERN CULTIVATED FORM. This is largely in use in Northern India 



from Bihar and Tirhut westward by north to the Panjab, where its area meets 

 that in which some form of i.m-ijentrn is grown, and southward to the Circars, 

 where I. tinetoria occurs. This, throughout the area specified, is the plant 

 known as nil, and is the form to which the name I. tinctoria, is applied. " It 

 is not exactly what Linnaeus meant by I. tinctorin : it is, however, precisely 

 what Gaertner intended by I. i /*!, and what Lamarck has figured as 

 i. inttica, but not the same thing as the old I. intiiea of Miller, which is 

 I. jiii'NHtu. L." (Prain and Baker, I.e. 65). In the Annual Report of the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens, Calcutta, for 1901-2, it is observed that while the Dutch held 

 possession of Malabar this indigo plant, " apparently derived from the Eastern 

 Malaya, came into use there." Prain (in the letter above mentioned) observes: 

 " About that time, 1686, there was cultivated in Malabar a different plant, r. 

 Hmiiatrnna, which seems to have been introduced a little later (whether from 

 Malabar or directly from the Malaya cannot be traced) into Bengal, where prior 

 to its introduction, indigo was not grown at all. This plant, which generally 

 passes under the name of I. tinetoria, although it is not precisely the same as 

 the true plant of that name, has now spread gradually westward and has driven 

 out almost completely the cultivation of the Egyptian indigo." " But what has 

 happened in Northern India has also happened more recently in Madras." " This 

 is all the more remarkable, because in all the older collections, such as those of 



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