NATURAL DYES AND COLORING MATTERS. 441 



Nevertheless, native textiles colored with natural dyes generally have 

 the reputation of holding their color. Thus, indigo blue, the yellow of 

 berberine and the green of the combination of the two which is commonly 

 used by the Ilocanos, are relatively very fast. The dark red color, bancudo 

 (Morinda spp.) (or mang-lcudu, Malay), employed by the natives of 

 Java for their celebrated hand-printed cottons and also much used by 

 the Moros, is very fast. 



THE DYEING OF GREEN COLORS. 



The green stains used by the Filipinos are produced by mixing a yellow 

 with a blue dye, or, in many cases, they are' simply chlorophyll. In 

 staining with capsicum, the leaves are pounded to a pulp in a mortar and 

 the cloth soaked with the pulp. 



The plant most commonly used for stains, Capsicum frutescens L., 

 or sili, Tagalog, contains no green other than chorophyll. A. Gr. Perkin 

 isolated a coloring matter of the alizarine series from the Indian species 

 Piper chaba Hunter. The two species Rhamnus utilis Dene., and 

 Rhamnus cliloroplwra, Dene., which yield lokain or Chinese green, do not 

 occur in the Philippines. 



INDIGO. 



The decrease in the quantity of natural dyestuffs produced is well 

 shown in the case of indigo, one of the most valuable of the natural dyes. 

 It was formerly extensively cultivated in the Philippines, but at present 

 none is produced for export. Two species,- Indigof era tinctoria L., and 

 Indigofera suffruticosa Mill. (=1. anil L.) are still grown to a small 

 extent for local consumption. In the province of Ilocos Norte, indigo 

 is employed by the Ilocanos for blue, and, together with the yellow dye 

 from the species Mahonia nepalensis DC, for green. 



Much the same decrease is also shown in India where the area under cultiva- 

 tion for indigo has diminished in the last five years from 194,880 to 85,840 

 hectares in 1909-1910. 6 Synthetic indigo appeared on the market in 1897. At 

 this time natural indigo blue brought from 8 to 10 pesos (4 to 5 dollars United 

 States currency) per -kilo. In 1905 the price had fallen to three and a half to 

 four pesos per kilo. 7 The Natal- Java indigo recently introduced 8 furnishes a 

 superior yield and this fact, together with the recent researches in this field by 

 A. G. Perkin and others, has somewhat revived the interest in natural indigo. 

 Perkin has stated that certain natural dyes may yet be produced cheaply enough 

 to compete with the coal-tar colors. 



s Journ. Soc. Ghem. Ind. (1909), 28, 1243. 



T Schmidt, Julius. Synthetisch-organische Chemie der N-suzeit, Braunschweig 

 (1908), 108. 



8 Journ. Soc. Ghem. Ind. (1910), 29, 264. Journ. Ghem,. Soc. London (1910), 

 97, 1469. 



In Java the species Indigofera arrecta Hochst. has been made to produce two 

 to three times the yield of indigo ordinarily obtained. According to A. G. Perkin, 

 the method of manufacture is probably identical with the new hot-water process. 



