Safflower Dye

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Safflower dye is one of the plants of the family called Asteraceae or Compositae, in Latin the name of this plant will sound as follows: Carthamus tinctorium L. As for the name of the safflower family itself, in Latin it will be: Asteraceae Dumort. (Compositae Giseke).

Description of safflower dye

Safflower is an annual herb, endowed with a straight, branched stem, the height of which will fluctuate between sixty and eighty centimeters. The leaves of this plant are rigid, sessile, alternate and oblong-ovate in shape, and they will also be spiny-toothed and endowed with a rather sharply protruding network of veins from below. The flowers of safflower dye are tubular, they are painted in bright orange tones and are endowed with a five-toothed corolla, and are also collected in large and spherical baskets. There are only five stamens of this plant, they will be endowed with anthers, which in turn are soldered into a tube. The pistil of the dyeing safflower is endowed with a lower ovary and a bifurcated stigma. The fruit of this plant is a hard, shiny achene, painted in white tones.

Dyeing safflower blooms during the period from July to August. Under natural conditions, this plant can very rarely be found as a weed in Central Asia, the Caucasus and the southern regions of the European part of Russia. Dyeing safflower will be cultivated in the fields, and sometimes it is bred as an ornamental plant and in front gardens.

Description of the medicinal properties of safflower dye

Dyeing safflower is endowed with very valuable healing properties, while for medicinal purposes it is recommended to use the seeds and marginal flowers of the flower basket of this plant. The presence of such valuable medicinal properties should be explained by the content in the composition of the flowers of this plant of red pigments of isocartamine and kartamine, and the yellow pigment of safflower gel. In addition, the flowers will contain the yellow pigment Kartamine, the new red pigment Kartamon and 7-glucoside of luteolin. The seeds of this plant contain a semi-drying fatty oil, which, in turn, will contain linolenic, oleic, stearic, linoleic, palmitic, myristic, arachinic and lignoceric acids.

Safflower flowers are endowed with a very effective laxative, diuretic and choleretic effect.

As for traditional medicine, here this plant is quite widespread. A broth prepared on the basis of safflower flowers is indicated for use in jaundice, gastritis, enterocolitis and gastric ulcer, while the seeds of this plant are used as a very effective blood purifier and laxative.

It is noteworthy that medicine quite allows the use of fatty safflower seed oil along with sunflower oil. In addition, the oil of this plant is used in the food industry.

As a choleretic, it is recommended to use the following very effective healing agent based on this plant: to prepare such a healing agent, you will need to take two teaspoons of dried safflower flowers for one glass of boiling water. The resulting healing mixture should first be in a thermos for about one hour, after which it is recommended to thoroughly strain such a mixture based on dyeing safflower. Take the resulting drug three to four times a day, one tablespoon before the start of a meal.