A pubescent herbaceous plant with much-branched, procumbent to ascending, angular stems, densely clothed with short tomentellous hairs and long white setae. Basal leaves are oblong-lanceolate, entire or crisped, while upper leaves are shorter, oblong-linear and sessile. Inflorescence is terminal, simple or forked, dense, becoming lax and elongate in fruit. Bracts are narrowly ovate, the calyx lobes are linear-lanceolate, densely covered with setulose hairs, and corolla is deep blue, glabrous outside. Fruit is a nutlet, obliquely ovoid, reticulate-tuberculate, with abruptly, strongly curved apex.
Mareotic Sector, Galala Desert
Mediterranean region
Coastal calcareous and sandy orchards, roadsides
Perennial
Height: 10-40 cm
Alkanna tinctoria, the dyer's alkanet[1] or simply alkanet, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the borage family Boraginaceae. Its roots are used to produce a red dye. The plant is also known as dyers' bugloss, orchanet, Spanish bugloss, or Languedoc bugloss. It is native to the Mediterranean region. A. tinctoria has 30 chromosomes and is regarded as a dysploid at the tetraploid level (4x + 2).[2]
A. tinctoria has a bright blue flower. The plant has a root of blackish appearance externally, but blue-red inside, with a whitish core. The root produces a fine red colouring material, which has been used as a dye in the Mediterranean region since antiquity. The dyestuff in its roots is soluble in alcohol, ether, and the oils, but is insoluble in water. It is used to give colour to wines and alcoholic tinctures, to vegetable oils, and to varnishes.
Powdered and mixed with oil, the alkanet root is used as a wood stain. When mixed into an oily environment, it imparts a crimson color to the oil, which when applied to a wood, moves the wood color towards dark-red-brown rosewood, and accentuates the grain of the wood.[3]
Alkanet is traditionally used in Indian food under the name ratan jot, and lends its red colour to some versions of the curry dish rogan josh. In Australia, alkanet is approved for use as a food colouring, but in the European Union, it is not.
It has been used as colorant for lipstick[4] and rouge.
In alkaline environments, alkanet dye has a blue color, with the color changing to crimson on addition of an acid.[5] The colour is red at pH 6.1, purple at 8.8 and blue at pH 10.
The colouring agent in A. tinctoria root has been chemically isolated and named alkannin.
In folk medicine, it is also used to treat abscesses and inflammations.[6]
In English in the late medieval era, the name alkanet meant A. tinctoria.[7] In the centuries since then, the name has come to be used informally for some botanically related other plants; see Alkanet.
Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Ward, Artemas (1911). The Grocer's Encyclopedia. 
{{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
Alkanna tinctoria, the dyer's alkanet or simply alkanet, is a herbaceous flowering plant in the borage family Boraginaceae. Its roots are used to produce a red dye. The plant is also known as dyers' bugloss, orchanet, Spanish bugloss, or Languedoc bugloss. It is native to the Mediterranean region. A. tinctoria has 30 chromosomes and is regarded as a dysploid at the tetraploid level (4x + 2).
A. tinctoria has a bright blue flower. The plant has a root of blackish appearance externally, but blue-red inside, with a whitish core. The root produces a fine red colouring material, which has been used as a dye in the Mediterranean region since antiquity. The dyestuff in its roots is soluble in alcohol, ether, and the oils, but is insoluble in water. It is used to give colour to wines and alcoholic tinctures, to vegetable oils, and to varnishes.
Powdered and mixed with oil, the alkanet root is used as a wood stain. When mixed into an oily environment, it imparts a crimson color to the oil, which when applied to a wood, moves the wood color towards dark-red-brown rosewood, and accentuates the grain of the wood.
Alkanet is traditionally used in Indian food under the name ratan jot, and lends its red colour to some versions of the curry dish rogan josh. In Australia, alkanet is approved for use as a food colouring, but in the European Union, it is not.
It has been used as colorant for lipstick and rouge.
In alkaline environments, alkanet dye has a blue color, with the color changing to crimson on addition of an acid. The colour is red at pH 6.1, purple at 8.8 and blue at pH 10.
The colouring agent in A. tinctoria root has been chemically isolated and named alkannin.
In folk medicine, it is also used to treat abscesses and inflammations.
In English in the late medieval era, the name alkanet meant A. tinctoria. In the centuries since then, the name has come to be used informally for some botanically related other plants; see Alkanet.
