Botanical Provenance of Historical Chinese Dye Plants

摘要

Botanical Provenance of Historical Chinese Dye Plants. Dye plants are an essential part of historical dyeing activities for textiles. Their correct botanical provenance is an important basis for understanding the sources mentioned in dyeing instructions and for chemical identification of the dyes on the textiles themselves. This paper describes a combined study of dyeing recipes in four historical manuscripts of the Ming (1368-1644 C.E.) and Qing Dynasties (1644-1911 C.E.). Within the context of historical plant medicine and botanical classification, this study resolves uncertainties about the names, provenance, and preferences for the significant dyes in Chinese textile history for the first time, namely safflower, sappanwood, smoketree, pagoda bud, Amur cork tree, indigo, Chinese gallnut, acorn cup, dark plum, munjeet, gromwell, gardenia, and turmeric. Most dye plants in the historical manuscripts refer to one or two major species or variants, with ambiguity arising mainly from non-uniform naming conventions and conversion between different taxonomies. It is now clear that saffron was confused with safflower in Ming Dynasty herbal plants instructions, that Su mu e similar to double dagger aee meant sappanwood (Caesalpinia sappan L.), and occasionally foreign redwoods from genera Caesalpinia and Haematoxylum, and that huang lu mu e integral ae aee, huang lue integral e similar to dagger and lu mu e similar to dagger/ae aee were all variants of Cotinus coggygria Scop. Pagoda bud can be identified by huai hua ae eS +/-, huai mi ae c +/-(3), huai hua mi ae eS +/- c +/-(3), and huai zi ae a, while jiang huang e-e integral and yv jin e integral e double dagger, recorded for dyeing, both referred to the rhizome of Curcuma longa L. Of the various zhi zi ae cent"a available, zhi zi for dyeing was Gardenia jasminoindes Ellis f. longicarpa Z center dot W center dot Xie et M. Okada, although whether this preference was widely recognized or practiced is not clear. This research promotes a better understanding of historical Chinese dye plants. It also complements existing research results of historical herbal medicine in the aspect of dyeing.