Coreopsis tinctoria is to dye for!

This beautiful flower is blanketing the field across from our soap shop right now, so naturally, I had to look into its uses. I knew it was a dye plant because I taught a summer class for kids once and we tie dyed t-shirts with it. Do you remember wrapping all those rubberbands around the fabric? As I recall, we used alum for the mordant and the shirts turned out a beautiful peachy shade. So yesterday I whipped up a test batch of soap to see if I could get the same results. The soap was a gorgeous rich golden yellow when I poured it, but we'll see what happens as I unmold it and it ages. Natural colorants are very unpredictable in cold process soap.

I found a report that American Indians used Coreopsis root tea for diarrhea and as an emetic. The dried tops were brewed into a tea to strengthen the blood and the boiled plant makes a red drink for internal pains and bleeding. I also discovered that the whole plant was used at one time as a coffee substitute.

Coreopsis is a showy annual native that blooms here in Texas in April, May and June. After that, there usually isn't sufficient rainfall to sustain it.