The Palmetto
Quarterly Magazine of the Florida Native Plant Society · Vol. 13, No. 3 · fall summer 1993
Natural Dyes
From Florida Native Plants
By Elizabeth Smith (drawings by the author)
Use of dyes may have all started when early men and women noticed the Berry stains on their fingers, and went from there to experiment with adding color to their daily lives.
However it may have started, we do know that the first recorded mention of dying and dye shops appears in a Chinese chronology dated 3000 B.C.
Using natural materials to dye fabrics appealed to me, and I decided to research our native plants to learn which berries, leaves, flowers or barks would yield dyes.
Being an amateur at both dyeing and Botany, I searched for boods, looking to history for related European plants, Records of early American settlers, Indians--- anything that mentioned color from native plant material.