Woad

Did you know

• Woad was the primary source of blue dye in Europe for millennia — ancient Britons famously painted their bodies with it before battle, which Julius Caesar recorded in 54 BC.
• The blue dye indigotin is identical in chemical structure to the blue from indigo (Indigofera), but woad leaves contain far lower concentrations.
• Woad cultivation collapsed in Europe after 1600 when trade routes opened and tropical indigo flooded the market, but woad farmers lobbied governments to ban imports for decades.
• In the first year, woad grows as a flat rosette; in the second year it bolts to 4 feet and produces clouds of tiny yellow flowers followed by distinctive hanging black seed pods.
• Modern research has found that woad extracts have significant antibacterial and antiviral properties, and its historical use as a wound dressing may have had a genuine medicinal basis.

Color meanings

Uses

• dye plant
• ornamental biennial
• historical textile production