INDIGOFERA TINCTORIA

Indigofera tinctoria








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Indigofera tinctoria


Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Subfamily: Faboideae
Tribe: Indigofereae
Genus: Indigofera
Species: I. tinctoria
Binomial name
Indigofera tinctoria
L.
Indigofera
tinctoria bears the common name True indigo. The plant was one of the
original sources of indigo dye. It has been naturalized to tropical and
temperate Asia, as well as parts of Africa, but its native habitat is
unknown since it has been in cultivation worldwide for many centuries.
Today most dye is synthetic, but dye from I. tinctoria is still
available, marketed as natural coloring. The plant is also widely grown
as a soil-improving groundcover.
True
indigo is a shrub one to two meters high. It may be an annual,
biennial, or perennial, depending on the climate in which it is grown.
It has light green pinnate leaves and sheafs of pink or violet flowers.
The plant is a legume, so it is rotated into fields to improve the soil
in the same way that other legume crops such as alfalfa and beans are.
Dye
is obtained from the processing of the plant's leaves. They are soaked
in water and fermented in order to convert the glycoside indican
naturally present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin. The
precipitate from the fermented leaf solution is mixed with a strong base
such as lye, pressed into cakes, dried, and powdered. The powder is
then mixed with various other substances to produce different shades of
blue and purple.










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