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Turnsole
Turnsole, katasol, or folium was a dyestuff prepared from the annual plant ''Chrozophora tinctoria''. History Turnsole became a mainstay of medieval Illuminated manuscript, manuscript illuminators starting with the development of the technique for extracting it in the thirteenth century, when it joined the vegetable-based woad and indigo in the illuminator's repertory. Its use was mostly as substitute of the more expensive Tyrian purple, the famous dye obtained from Murex molluscs. However, the queen of blue colorants was always the expensive lapis lazuli or its substitute azurite, ground to the finest powders. Turnsole was downgraded to a shading glaze and fell out of use in the illuminator's palette by the turn of the seventeenth century, with the easier availability of less fugitive mineral-derived blue pigments. According to its method of preparation, turnsole produced a range of translucent colors from blue, through purple to red, depending on its reaction to the acidity or al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Heliotropium
''Heliotropium'' is a genus of flowering plants traditionally included in the family Boraginaceae ''s.l.'', but placed in the family Heliotropiaceae within the Boraginales order, by the Boraginales Working Group.. There are around 325 species in this almost cosmopolitan genus, which are commonly known as heliotropes. They are highly toxic to dogs and cats, as well as to humans. Etymology The name "heliotrope" derives from the old idea that the inflorescences of these plants turned their rows of flowers to the Sun.Chittenden, Fred J. Ed., Royal Horticultural Society Dictionary of Gardening, Oxford 1951 Ἥλιος (''helios'') is Greek for "Sun", τρέπειν (''trepein'') means "to turn". The Middle English name "turnsole" has the same meaning. A Classical myth, told in Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'', imagines that the water nymph Clytie, in love with the sun god Helios, was scorned by him. Wasting away, she transformed into the heliotrope, whose flowers supposedly always face t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Illuminated Manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers and liturgical books such as psalters and courtly literature, the practice continued into secular texts from the 13th century onward and typically include proclamations, enrolled bills, laws, charters, inventories, and deeds. The earliest surviving illuminated manuscripts are a small number from late antiquity, and date from between 400 and 600 CE. Examples include the Vergilius Romanus, Vergilius Vaticanus, and the Rossano Gospels. The majority of extant manuscripts are from the Middle Ages, although many survive from the Renaissance. While Islamic manuscripts can also be called illuminated and use essentially the same techniques, comparable Far Eastern and Mesoamerican works are described as ''painted''. Most manuscripts, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbs
Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnish (food), garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. ''Herbs'' generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while ''spices'' are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, Bark (botany), bark, roots and fruits. Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, aromatic and in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs; in medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant might be considered "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and Vascular cambium, cambium), resin and pericarp. The word "herb" is pronounced in Commonwealth English, but is standard among American En ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Library
The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit library, it receives copies of all books produced in the United Kingdom and Ireland, as well as a significant proportion of overseas titles distributed in the United Kingdom. The library operates as a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The British Library is a major research library, with items in many languages and in many formats, both print and digital: books, manuscripts, journals, newspapers, magazines, sound and music recordings, videos, play-scripts, patents, databases, maps, stamps, prints, drawings. The Library's collections include around 14 million books, along with substantial holdings of manuscripts and items dating as far back as 2000 BC. The library maintains a programme for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbal
A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, Herbal tonic, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or Magic (paranormal), magical powers, and the legends associated with them.Arber, p. 14. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for Extract, herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.Anderson, p. 2. Herbals were among the first literature produced in Ancient Egypt, China, India, and Europe as the medical wisdom of the day accumulated by Herbalism, herbalists, apothecary, apothecaries and physicians. Herbals were also among the first books to be printed in both China and Europe. In Western Europe herbals flourished for two centuries following the introduction of moveable type (c. 1470–1670). In the late 17th century, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
François Pierre La Varenne
François Pierre de la Varenne (, 1615–1678 in Dijon), Burgundian by birth, was the author of ''Le Cuisinier françois'' (1651), one of the most influential cookbooks in early modern French cuisine. La Varenne's book expressed the culinary innovations that had revolutionised medieval and Renaissance French cookery in the 16th century and early 17th century. Historical context La Varenne was the foremost member of a group of French chefs, writing for a professional audience, who codified French cuisine in the age of King Louis XIV. The others were Nicolas de Bonnefons, ''Le Jardinier françois'' (1651) and ''Les Délices de la campagne'' (1654), and François Massialot, ''Le Cuisinier royal et bourgeois'' (1691), which was still being edited and modernised in the mid-18th century. The cookbook was still used in France until the French Revolution. The seventeenth century saw a culinary revolution which transported French gastronomy into the modern era. The heavily spiced fla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrozophoridine
Chrozophoridin is a chemical used as a dye. It is derived from the plant '' Chrozophora tinctoria'' (commonly known as dyer's croton, giradol, or turnsole), which is a species native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' produced the blue-purple colorant "turnsole" (also known as katasol or folium) used in medieval illuminated manuscripts and as a food colorant in Dutch cheese and certain liquors. The color comes from the plant's fruit, specifically its dry outer coat. The colorant is also obtained from the translucent sap contained in the plant cells when the leaves of the plant are broken off and exposed to the air., s.v. ''Chrozophora tinctoria'' Different shades of blue and purple may also be obtained when the juice extracts are exposed to the vapors emitted from ammonia (NH3), and which in France, during the late 19th century, was produced by applying fresh horse manure and urine to the fabric that was soaked wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthocyanin
Anthocyanins (), also called anthocyans, are solubility, water-soluble vacuole, vacuolar pigments that, depending on their pH, may appear red, purple, blue, or black. In 1835, the German pharmacist Ludwig Clamor Marquart named a chemical compound that gives flowers a blue color, Anthokyan, in his treatise "''Die Farben der Blüthen''" (English: The Colors of Flowers). Food plants rich in anthocyanins include the blueberry, raspberry, black rice, and black soybean, among many others that are red, blue, purple, or black. Some of the colors of autumn leaves are derived from anthocyanins. Anthocyanins belong to a parent class of molecules called flavonoids synthesized via the phenylpropanoid pathway. They can occur in all biological tissue, tissues of higher plants, including leaf, leaves, plant stem, stems, roots, flowers, and fruits. Anthocyanins are derived from anthocyanidins by adding sugars. They are odorless and moderately astringent. Although approved as food and beverage c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic chemical compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the chemical formula, formula . A Binary compounds of hydrogen, stable binary hydride and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinctive pungent smell. It is widely used in fertilizers, refrigerants, explosives, cleaning agents, and is a precursor for numeous chemicals. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous waste, and it contributes significantly to the nutritional needs of terrestrial organisms by serving as a precursor to fertilisers. Around 70% of ammonia produced industrially is used to make fertilisers in various forms and composition, such as urea and diammonium phosphate. Ammonia in pure form is also applied directly into the soil. Ammonia, either directly or indirectly, is also a building block for the synthesis of many chemicals. In many countries, it is classified as an List of extremely hazardous substances, extremely hazardous substance. Ammonia is toxic, cau ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chrozophora Tinctoria
''Chrozophora tinctoria'' (commonly known as dyer's croton, giradol, turnsole or dyer's litmus plant) is a plant species native to the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Pakistan, and Central Asia. It is also present as a weed in North America and Australia. Description It is an annual, typically found in nutrient-poor ground. It develops a large taproot. The plant is erect and covered with wool-like hairs. The ash-green leaves are alternate. The tiny monecious flowers are grouped in a raceme. The lower, female flowers lack petals and the upper male flowers have five small yellow petals. Pollination is by ants. The fruits are conspicuous and consist of three dark green conjoined spheres. Their surface is decorated with white scales and warty structures. Each sphere contains three seeds, which are propelled away from the plant by the mechanical force of the mature fruit twisting as it opens. It is considered a poisonous plant. Its consumption may cause stomach upset, vomiting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
