Curated playlist
Plant dyes
- OnionThe onion has been grown for at least 7,000 years, yet no wild ancestor has ever been found.
- SorghumSorghum bread baked about 5,100 years ago now sits in a museum in Turin. It was found in graves of Predynastic Egypt.
- WalnutA walnut shell grit clog helped bring down a US Army helicopter. The 1982 Chinook crash ended its aviation use.
- CoconutEvery coconut on a remote Pacific island arrived because a person brought it. Ocean currents alone could not do it.
- HickoryHickory trees once grew across the whole Northern Hemisphere. Ice erased the genus from Europe entirely.
- MapleDuring World War II, the US Army copied maple seeds to build an airdrop supply carrier.
- Indigofera tinctoriaThe shrub Indigofera tinctoria once colored emperors' robes, and most indigo sold today is synthetic.
- Yam (vegetable)Yam is the common name for certain plants in the genus Dioscorea, and among the Igbo people of south eastern Nigeria it comes with a rule. No one eats the newly harvested tuber until the community has marked the feast called Iri ji ọhụrụ.…
- IndigoferaIndigofera, a genus of plants, gave us the word aniline. The chemical was first made from one of its species.
- Juglans regiaWitches were said to gather at a walnut tree in Benevento, Italy. A judge wrote about them in 1526.