Madder
A plant whose roots give a lasting red dye, used from India to Europe for thousands of years.
Also: manjistha, Turkey red, alizarin
Madder is a climbing plant whose roots, dried and ground, dye cloth red. With different mordants the same roots give pink, orange, purple and brown. Indian dyers used it, together with a related plant called manjistha, to make the fast, bright cottons that were traded across the world. A long and complicated method known as Turkey red gave an especially strong colour. In 1868 German chemists worked out how to make its main colouring matter, alizarin, from coal tar, and the growing of madder collapsed within a few years.