Blue Jay's Picks Bedstraw, Cosmos, Marigolds

Yellow bedstraw is first on Blue Jay’s favorites list. It makes a nice tangerine color on wool with an alum mordant according to RB. Gallium verum is the Latin, scientific name. I found a close relative in Meet the Natives, (M. Walter Pesman). He calls it Bedstraw, of the Madder family or gallium boreale. It should be easy to find on road sides and dry slopes. Our specimens will be the result of hikes, rides or drives in the neighboring countryside.

Yellow Cosmos (or cosmos sulfureus) is next. The dye results in a deeper, darker orange. It doesn’t appear to be a native. But, bright side, we have some in our corner garden, 88, that should be returning this year. These samples will be a garden harvest. I think that the seeds came from Ace Hardware several years ago.

Marigolds (tagetes erecta, or tagetes patula) result in various shades of olive to yellow. RB separates the flower dye from the stem and leaf dye. Surprisingly, to me anyway, I found a couple of Marigold relatives native to the area, more alpine though. The White Marsh Marigold (caltha leptosepala) of the Buttercup family is found in marshy areas. Our specimens will be the result of hikes.

There is also the Beggar’s Tick or Bur Marigold (Biden’s Cernua) of the Sunflower family. This can be found along irrigation ditches, streams and marshy areas. We’ll collect samples for this from hikes, too.

I reflected on this plant with Blue Jay, looking at the Burpee website (burbee.com). I was showing her all the different varieties of marigolds they had. My though was that any of the varieties could yield nice colors. She was stuck on the “Marigold Scarlet Starlet”. That was the one that we had to get. Reasoning with her was not an option.

When I asked why, Blue Jay found A Dyer’s Garden and opened it up to the Marigold page. The picture there and the Burpee picture could have been cropped from the same photo. Generally I call that a “nice catch.”