Dyer’s-Weed-Reseda luteola

At the end of June, flowering ends. The plant does not need fertile soil to grow. dyer’s weed; It can grow in moist, sandy and gravelly soil. It can even be seen that this plant grows on its own after a year on newly built roadsides. This plant is a plant that is widely grown in Western Asia and Mediterranean countries, as well as cultivated.

The main dye in the structure of Dyer’s-weed is luteolin. Many old textiles, which were determined to be dyed with luteolin dyes as a result of dyes analysis, have survived until today with little or no fading.

 

It is known that Dyer’s-weed  was used in textile dyeing and as a pigment in wall paintings, paintings and icons in prehistoric times.

The seeds of Dyer’s-weedflower were found in the Neolithic lake excavation in Switzerland. It was widely cultivated and used in painting in Hellenistic and Roman periods.

In the dye and mordant analyzes of Nubian textiles in the 6th century BC, it was determined that budgerigar was used as dye and iron and aluminum 

were used as mordant.

In the Romans, dyer’s weed was known as one of the best plants with light fastness. Priestess dresses of Dyer’s-weedand virgin girls

 

It is said to have been used to dye wedding dresses. He said that only women's clothes were dyed with pilini budgerigar.

 

When the dye analyzes of Coptic textiles of the 3rd and 10th centuries are made, it is seen that the budgerigar was widely used in Egypt. These textiles are yellow in color; budgerigar, orange in color; together with budgerigar in madder and green; dyer’s weed and indigo were used.

 

It has been determined that the 16th century Uşak carpets, which are one of the brightest periods of Turkish carpet art, were dyed with dyer’s weed in the yellow dye analysis of the carpet group known as Lotto carpets. The budgerigar, which was a very popular dye plant in the Ottoman Empire, was frequently used in both wool and silk dyeing. It was used in the yellow colors of Ottoman fabrics and together with indigo (Isatis tinctoria) or Indigofera tinctoria as the yellow component of green.

 

It has been cultivated in Europe and America for centuries. The cultivation (culture) of the plant in Turkey and Europe continued until the end of the 19th century. However, since it could not compete with synthetic dyes, its agriculture was abandoned.

Until the middle of the 20th century, it was used as the yellow color of Moroccan carpets and the yellow component of the green color.

With the re-emergence of natural dyes after the 1980s, they started to be used again in Turkey, especially in Western Anatolia and Central Anatolia. 

 

It can be made with the dried and ground stem, leaves and flowers of the plant by dyeing with mordant.