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Published online 26 November 1998 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news981126-7
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Woad wage
Until the end of the 16th century, and for hundreds - if not thousands - of years before that, the mustard-related weed, woad (Isatis tinctoria) provided the only blue dye in Europe. Woad was a source of indigo, the dark purplish-blue pigment used to dye wool, to paint walls (in Pompeii for example), to make ink and even to tattoo skin (as in the Iron-Age Britons known as Picts - or 'painted').
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