Native Dye Plants of the United States :: Botany

inborn Dye Plants of the United StatesThe first to use endemic disgrace plants in the United States were the Native Americans. Their culture was totally leechlike on what the land produced. This is reflected in the wealth of information Native Americans have about efficacious plants, from medicinal to ceremonial and dye plants. This is reflected in the types of houses they strengthened and the names of places (often after the plants that grew there). Early European colonists foolishly ignored the recognition of the Native Americans and modern Americans are not much wiser. Americans need to square off about the plants and animals in our own country and how they can be useful to mankind. Instead of bringing non- adapted species of Europe to North America we need to take heed what native adapted species can fulfill our needs and wants (Gilmore 1977). For example, we spend thousands of dollars feeding, sheltering, and condole with for European cattle when we have native bovine s, bison which are naturally adapted to the climate and environment. Melvin Randolph Gilmore sums this idea up well in the following reciteThe country can not be wholly made over and adjusted to a people of foreign habits and tastes. There are magnanimous tracts of land in America whose bounty is wasted because the plants which can be grown on them are not acceptable to our people.(Gilmore 1977). Native Americans intimate about the plants in their environment through general trial and delusion and through communication with other tribes (Gilmore 1977). Some of the dyes apply by Native Americans of the Missouri River region are discussed below. Far more plants were used for medicines, shelter, and tools than dyes. dissimilar green dyes came from pond scum probably Protococcus, Ulothrix, Chaetophora, and Spirogyra. Another green dye that was used for bows and arrows came from lambs quarter, Chenopodium album. Yellow dyes came from a variety of places including smooth sumac, gen us Rhus glabra, roots, the lichens Parmelia borreri and Usnea barbata, and young cottonwood (Populus sargentii) leaf buds collected in early spring this particular yellow dye was used for people of colour arrow feathers and quills. An orange dye also used as a feather dye was boiled out of the vines of dodder (Cuscuta paradoxa). Red dyes came from pokeberry (Phytolacca americana) and were used to paint horses and people. The familiar bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) was also used as a skin dye or to dye articles that were boiled with the roots.