Madder (Rubia tinctoria)

Because I was fortunate to receive, as a gift, the book by John and Margaret Cannon and because I’ve been gardening at Meadowbrook, I decided to sign up for Herb of the Month. I especially like the colors obtained from madder which are shown in the book. We’ve had madder in the Meadowbrook Dye Garden for several years. It seems to thrive in the sunny location; I’ve been pruning it and reducing it in size in the spring. The stems are brittle and need support for the plant to grow well.

Madder has been traced back to western and central Asia. It is currently naturalized in many parts of central and southern Europe and is sometimes found in the British land areas. In naturalized areas, it is often found in hedges, thickets or barren and waste areas. It has stems up to 3 ¼ feet long, with downward-pointing prickles, and it grows along the ground or inter-twines with other vegetation. People in France have used the leaves and stalks to polish metalwork. Madder has elliptical leaves in groups, or whorls, of four to six with terminal panicles of small, pale yellowish flowers with four petals. It blooms in June, in the second or third year. When ripe it has black berries.

Cotton textiles dyed from madder, dating from around 3000 BC, have been found in the Indus Valley. Madder is mentioned in the Bible and the dye has been used on linen from tombs in the Nile Valley. It was an important dye among ancient Greeks and Romans and has been cultivated in Italy and the Near East. Madder was important in Europe and was cultivated there during the Middle Ages. From the 1500s to the 1700s, the Dutch had almost a monopoly on madder’s production and they exported it to India to be used in the expanding cotton industry.

An almost fade-less cotton dye, called turkey red, was developed in India and later was used in Turkey. The process of making this dye involved about twenty steps and used blood; oil and rancid fat; charcoal; cow, sheep and dog manure; as well as the liquid contents of animals’ stomachs. Villages where this dye process was used were said to have been inhabited by only the dyers and their families. In 1747, France brought in Greek workers who were skilled in these techniques. By 1784, due to spies from Holland and England having stolen the secrets of the process and due to its having been made more sanitary, people in Manchester were using it. Madder was used to dye fabric for soldiers’ uniforms and hunting "pink" coats.

Its use declined rapidly after the development of synthetic alizarin in 1826. The synthetic substance was derived from anthracene, found in coal tar. Madder needs to grow for at least three years before one can harvest the roots to use in dyeing. They are harvested in the autumn and the largest roots contain the most pigment. As our Meadowbrook Herb Garden leaflet states, the mordant (or fixative) used determines the color of the fabric. Colors that have been obtained from madder range from pale apricot to pink, red, orange and purple. The color illustrations in Dye Plants and Dyeing show a dark brown obtained by using a copper mordant, red using alum, orange using alum and tin, blue-red using chromium, grayed red-orange using alkaline chromium and a grayed red using no mordant.

Madder has been used as an animal feed and, as the dye colors bone (as well as milk and urine), it has been used in experiments in bone growth.

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