Litmus is also obtained from the same lichens as yield orchil.  It is not used in dyeing, and is a violet-blue colouring matter when neither acid nor alkaline, but neutral as it is termed.  It turns red with only a trace of acid, and blue with the least trace of alkali, and so forms a very delicate reagent when pieces of paper are soaked with it, and dipped into the liquids to be tested.

Safflower:  This vegetable dyeing material, for producing pink colours on cotton without the aid of a mordant, consists of the petals of the flower of carthamus tinctorius.  It contains a principle termed “Carthamin” or “carthamic acid,” which can be separated by exhausting safflower with cold acidulated water (sulphuric acid) to dissolve out a yellow colouring matter which is useless.  The residue after washing free from acid is treated with a dilute solution of soda crystals, and the liquid is then precipitated by an acid.  A red precipitate is obtained, which fixes itself directly on cotton thread immersed in the liquid, and dyes it a delicate rose pink, which is, unfortunately, very fugitive.  Silk can be dyed like cotton.  The colour is not fast against light.

Turmeric is the root portion of a plant called curcuma tinctoria, that grows in Southern Asia.  The principle forming the colouring matter is “Curcumin.”  It is insoluble in cold water, not much soluble in hot, but easily soluble in alcohol.  From the latter solution it separates in brilliant yellow crystals.  Although the colour it yields is very fugitive, the wool and silk dyers still use it for producing especially olives, browns, and similar compound shades.  It produces on cotton and wool a bright yellow colour without the aid of any mordant.  To show you how easily dyeing with turmeric is effected, I will warm some powdered turmeric root in a flask with alcohol, and add the extract to a vessel of water warmed to about 140 deg.  F. (60 deg.  C.), and then dip a piece of cotton in and stir it about, when it will soon be permanently dyed a fine bright yellow.  A piece of wool similarly worked in the bath is also dyed.  However, the unfortunate circumstance is that this colour is fast neither to light nor alkalis.  Contact with soap and water, even, turns the yellow-dyed cotton, reddish-brown.

Annatto is a colouring principle obtained from the pulpy matter enclosing the seeds of the fruit of a tree, the Bixa orellana, growing in Central and Southern America.  The red or orange colour it yields is fugitive, and so its use is limited, being chiefly confined to silk dyeing.  The yellow compound it contains is called “Orellin,” and it also contains an orange compound called “Bixin,” which is insoluble in water, but readily soluble in alkalis and in alcohol with a deep yellow colour.  To dye cotton with it, a solution is made of the colour in a boiling solution of carbonate of soda.  The cotton is worked in the diluted alkaline solution whilst hot.  By passing the dyed cotton through water acidulated with a little vitriol or alum, a redder tint is assumed.  For wool and silk, pale shades are dyed at 106 deg.  F. (50 deg.  C.) with the addition of soap to the bath, dark shades at 200 deg. to 212 deg.  F. (80 deg. to 100 deg.  C.).