Lawsonia inermis L.

Horticultural & Botanical History

‘On the coast of Coromandel where it is indigenous, I have commonly found it in the state of a large shrub, though it is naturally a small, ramous tree.  Here it is in flower and seed most part of the year. […] It is much used for hedges, growing readily from cuttings; consequently fertile seeds are not often met with.  The flowers are remarkably fragrant, whether fresh or dry, and are particularly grateful at a distance.

The species called spinosa is nothing more, I imagine, than the same plant growing on a dry sterile soil; at least, in such soils, I have often found it very thorny, the branchlets being then short and rigid, with sharp thorny points.

The fresh leaves beat up with Catechu, dyes the nails and skin of a reddish orange colour, which is much admixed by the fair sex all over India.  The fresh made paste is laid on at bed time, and removed in the morning; the colour remains till the nails or epedermis is renewed, or removed.

The leaves yield in decoction a porter coloured liquor; I have found it a deep orange colour, which acids destroy, while alkalies and infusions of astringent vegetables deepen it; this decoction dyes the finger of a deep orange; but does not communicate any colour to cloth variously prepared, nor could I procure any precipitate from the decoction worth attending to. [Roxburgh vol.2, p.258/1832]

Introduced to Britain in 1752.  It is a source of the dye henna.  [JD].

History at Camden Park

Possibly introduced by Macarthur because of its economic value as a source of dye but probably short lived in the gardens as it only appears in the 1850 catalogue.

Notes