DYES FROM PLANTS

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17832, 28 April 1926, Page 10

DYES FROM PLANTS

Many country people have skill and experience in making natural dyes from plants. In parts of Wales the picking of bilberries or whortleberries by gipsies on the hills is almost an industry; and only those who have tried to pick these tiny berries know what labour this entails. The bilberry and the black currant always preserve their value as dyes, and per haps, in spite of the popularity of artificial dyes, vegetable dyes will even increase in usefulness. Many plants and fruits are capable of yielding good and lasting dyes. An indelible stain may be left even by the apparently colourless juice of a pear It rivals the outer case of a walnut or the juice of the blackberry. But rpany of the best dyes come not. from fruits, but from the juice of the plant itself. In Devonshire a dye is obtained from the grey green lichen that grow.s on the trunks of trees in the wet woods or among the mosses on the ground. It yielda green-vellow dye equal in quality to the coal-tar products.