1918.] The N.Z. Journal of Science and Technology. 
349 
Safflower, consisting of the dried flower of the Egyptian thistle 
(Carthamus tinotoria ), is used to a limited extent for dyeing red tape a 
fugitive colour. 
Saffron, from the flowers of Crocus sativis, is too expensive to be used 
in dyeing, but is used in colouring pastry, and to a limited extent in 
medicine. 
Turmeric, safflower, and annatto are notable as being the only three 
natural dyes which will dye vegetable fabrics directly. 
Great quantities of cudbear, litmus, and orchil from Canary Islands 
lichens ( Roccella) are now used as bottoming ” colours in indigo dyeing, 
and considerable quantities are used in the dyeing of carpet-yarn. These 
dyes are also used in conjunction with other dyes in producing compound 
shades. 
Catechu and gambier from Indian Acacia Catechu , Areca (Palmaceae), 
and Uncaria (Rubiaceae) are still largely used in calico-printing and silk¬ 
dyeing. 
The insoluble redwoods, sanderswood ( Pterocarpus Santilinus) from 
India and China, barwood ( Baphia nitida) and camwood ( Pterocarpus sp.) 
from West Africa, are still used principally in wool-dyeing in conjunction 
with other dyewoods for compound shades, especially browns, which, being 
fast to light and milling, are used in dyeing heavy woollen cloths. These 
dyes are also used for “ bottoming ” indigo. 
Persian berries, the fruit of the buckthorn and several other rhamna- 
ceous species, in the form of extracts, are still used to a considerable extent 
in calico-printing, and in wool-dyeing they also have a limited use. 
Woad, a cruciferous biennial of Europe (Isatis tinctoria), although now 
never used alone in dyeing, finds an application in the fermentation-vats in 
dyeing , with indigo, dyers contending that it causes indigo to penetrate 
more thoroughly into the interior of the fibre, and that the finest shades 
of indigo-dyeing cannot be obtained without an admixture of woad. Woad 
has been used from the earliest times. Pliny records its use in wool¬ 
dyeing, and Caesar mentions the custom of the ancient Britons of staining 
their bodies with it—hence the name “ Britain, 5 ' from the Celtic hrith or 
hr it = painted. 
Fustic is the wood of another western tree ( Morus or Maclura tinctoria ), 
of the family Urticaceae. It is one of the most important of all natural 
yellow colouring-matters, especially for wool or worsted, but has been 
replaced to a large extent by synthetic dyestuffs. In America the Osage 
orange ( Maclura aurantiaca), a sister species of the fustic tree, has since 
the war been laid under contribution in the dyeing of cloth for soldiers’ 
uniforms, aided by the discovery of quick-acting mordants. It is claimed 
that the Osage orange may be mixed with any natural or artificial colour 
to dye practically any organic fabric. Quercitron bark from an American 
species of oak ( Quercus nigra or Q. tinctoria) is the inner bark dried and 
pulverized. A preparation called “ flavin ” derived from this bark is 
also on the market. By methods similar to those used with fustic 
similar colours are produced, but, like fustic, they become reddish-brown 
on exposure to light. 
Logwood, or campeachy wood ( Haematoxylon campeachianum) , the 
product of a large western tree of Leguminosae—a family which contains 
a considerable number of the dye-plants of the world—is a most important 
dyestuff used for dyeing black on wool or silk mordanted with iron or 
chromium. Although the colouring principle of logwood has not been 
