74 "WURRUS" DYE FROM " ROTTLERA TINCTORIA." 



1853. D r . Roxburgh, in his Plants of the Coast of Coromandcl, has 



published a beautiful figure of Rottlera tinctoria, accompanied 

 by the following description of the fruit (vol. ii., p. 36, fig. 168) : 

 "Capsule roundish, three-furrowed, three-celled, three- valved, 

 size of a small cherry, covered with much red powder. Seed 

 solitary, globular." After stating that the tree is a native of the 

 inland mountainous parts of the Circars, flowering during the 

 cold season, he thus proceeds : 



Dr. Rox- " The red powder which covers the capsules is a noted dyeing 

 burgh. drug, especially among the Moors, and constitutes a consider- 

 able branch of commerce from the mountainous parts of the 

 Circars. It is chiefly purchased by the merchants trading to 

 Hydrabad and other interior parts of the peninsula. When 

 the capsules are ripe or full-grown, in February and March, they 

 are gathered, the red powder is carefully brushed off and col- 

 lected for sale, no sort of preparation being necessary to pre- 

 serve it 



" This red powder dyes silk a deep, bright, durable, orange or 

 flame-colour of very great beauty. The Hindoo silk dyers use 

 the following method : 



. " Four parts of Wassunta-gunda [the Telinga name of ftottlera 

 tinctoria], one of powdered alum, two of salt of soda (native 

 Barilla) which is sold in the bazaars, are rubbed well together 

 with a very small proportion of oil of sesamum, so little as 

 hardly to be perceptible ; when well mixed, the whole is put 

 into boiling water, proportionable to the silk to be dyed, and 

 kept boiling smartly more or less time, according to the shade 

 required, but turning the silk frequently to render the colour 

 uniform." , 



Dr. F. Dr. Francis Buchanan met with Eottlera tinctoria in the Ani- 

 an * malaya forest in Coimbatore, near the frontier of Malabar. 1 He 

 states that the tree is called in the Tamil language Corunga 

 Munji Maram, which signifies Monkey' s-f ace-tree, "for these 

 animals," says he, " paint their faces red, by rubbing them with 

 the fruit. The tree is small and the timber bad. The natives 

 deny all knowledge of the dyeing quality possessed by the red 

 powder that covers the fruit ; but at different places in Mysore, 



1 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara, and 

 Malabar. Loud., 1807. 4to. Vol. ii., p. 339. 



