What plants were used to dye cloth in ancient times?

In ancient times, the plants used to dye cloth were madder, gardenia, cymes, Arnebia euchroma and frozen green.

1, madder

Madder is a very common plant used to dye red. It has been used since ancient times. Madder, also known as blood in ancient times, was used to dye clothes as early as Shang and Zhou Dynasties. Rubia contains a lot of rubicin, which can be dyed into different shades of red. Red in ancient times was mostly dyed by madder.

2. Gardenia

The fruit of gardenia after flowering is well preserved and contains genistein, which is just right for dyeing clothes. Yellow was a common color before Qin and Han Dynasties.

3. Polygonum blue

Cymes, a plant, must have something to do with blue just by listening to its name. In fact, in addition to this name, Polygonum cymosum can also be directly called blue or indigo. Lime water and distiller's grains, plus Polygonum blue, can be dyed blue.

4. Arnebia euchroma

In ancient times, it was really a very complicated process to dye purple. Although Arnebia euchroma is widely distributed, the process is complicated, and it takes many complicated processes to dye very pure purple. Therefore, in ancient times, purple was the exclusive color of royalty or nobility.

5. Frozen green

Frozen green is a plant of rhamnaceae and a deciduous tree. Relatively tall, can be as high as 4 meters. Frozen green itself is a very ornamental plant, and it is also the main plant of green dye. It is widely distributed. In ancient times, frozen green was one of the few natural plant dyes, but in modern times, the dyeing technology is more powerful and much better than before.

The above contents refer to Baidu Encyclopedia -Rubia.