BOTANICAL CHARACTERS OF WELD. 429 



Besides the woad blue, our fields furnished us with a 

 native yellow dye; and these two, while securing to us 

 primitive colours, when mixed together in different propor- 

 tions gave rise to a third colour green in all the various 

 hues and tints which it was desired to impart to our tex- 

 tile fabrics. This yellow dye was obtained from WELD, 

 or DYER'S WEED, as it is sometimes called the RESEDA 

 LUTEOLA at present a common weed, met with well-nigh 

 everywhere on calcareous soils of a light and poor descrip- 

 tion. The colouring properties of weld were not unknown 

 to the ancients, as we find mention made of it under the 

 name of lutea by Pliny (lib. xxxiii. c. 5) ; while Yitru- 

 vius, in his seventh book, and Virgil, in the fourth eclogue, 

 speak of it, and call it lutum. Our knowledge of the 

 technical uses to which vegetable substances (plants) were 

 applied by the ancients is very deficient, from the fact 

 that none of the mechanical or chemical arts were 

 accounted liberal, or their practice otherwise than de- 

 grading to freemen and men of education. Pliny says of 

 the one now before us that of dyeing that he should 

 not have passed it over if it had been one of the liberal 

 arts. Hence, these trades were carried on by slaves, who 

 pursued an established routine of operations, without the 

 ability or the wish to improve upon them. In this country 

 weld is not now to be met with in cultivation at all; on 

 the Continent, however, it still retains its place as a regular 

 field crop. 



Botanically, weld belongs to the order RESEDACE.E, and 

 is closely allied with the R. odorata, the well-known 

 mignonette of our gardens. It is an annual or biennial 

 plant, growing to the height of 2 to 3 feet, with an erect, 

 stiff, branching stem, clothed with narrow, light-green, 

 somewhat wavy leaves, and bearing at the extremities 

 spikes of greenish-white flowers, resembling those of the 

 common mignonette, but without their agreeable odour. 



