Woad is me.

Not that I am blue or envision myself as a woad-painted Pict.

It’s just that I have always wondered about woad, and this year my curiosity was piqued when I found woad seeds for sale in the Pinetree Garden Seeds catalog.

The mention of woad evokes misty medieval visions in my head, although in reality, its history dates back more than 2,000 years when the Romans discovered the Picts covered in woad. More than a thousand years later, woad was the only source for blue dye in Europe.

Dyes were much like spices, it seems, and certain hues of cloth were often worth their weight in gold. During the Middle Ages, woad was the foundation of the economy in many European regions and remained so until the introduction of indigo from Asia. Woad’s advantage was that it could grow well in northern climes, unlike indigo, which preferred more heat.

Chemically, the difference between woad and indigo is nonexistent. Both produce the chemical indigotin, just in different quantities. Woad has the lesser.

In some cultures, woad has medicinal value as well. The Pinetree catalog says that the Chinese use it as an antibiotic. Botanical.com lists some interesting uses through the annals of time, although the favorite seems to be related to the spleen. That treatment used a plaster of woad, while a woad ointment was recommended for ulcers and inflammations.

An interesting aside on woad notes that chewing the seeds turns saliva blue.

Which leads me to ask, who would want blue saliva? Unless one is talking about something in the shade of blueberry, not me.

Considering all that fascinating history, woad isn’t particularly attractive. It’s not hideous, but as a member of the mustard family, woad looks more like a weed and less like a long-cultivated plant.

Isatis tinctoria, as woad is known in Latin, is a biennial bush, growing about a yard tall and blossoming into a mustardy-yellow cloud of flowers. The early-summer blooms, which bees find rather attractive (and yet another selling point for me), mature into purple seed pods.

Woad is hardy to Zone 4, so it likely will winter over in most of Maine. Native to central and southern Europe and parts of Asia, woad can withstand dry places, probably because of its long taproot.

It is that quality that has made woad one of the most unwanted weeds in parts of the United States.

As I hunted around the Internet for information on woad, I discovered lots of government material – mostly from the Forest Service – that listed woad as one of the most noxious weeds in the nation.

That had me a bit concerned, until I got to the part about its history in the United States. Woad was introduced during colonial times, but it went west through contaminated alfalfa seed in the early 1900s. In the Northeast, woad hasn’t been a problem; it is, however, in southern and western parks.

To tame it in range lands, scientists are using a biological control, a fungus discovered on the plants in the late 1970s.

For me, that means I don’t have to feel guilty about growing woad. Given my garden’s microclimate, a dip down into Zone 3 isn’t unusual, which might kill the whole planting. And if it does survive, I can control seed production by picking the flowers, which blossom on second-year plants.

In my woad search, I also discovered a Web site for dyers that included “The Woad Page,” with all a person might need to know about woad.

The most curious stuff at www.net-link.net/~rowan/crafts/woad/woadpage.html was on how to process woad once you do have some plants growing. The dye comes from the leaves, which must be chopped up. There’s boiling water and ammonia involved, along with litmus paper and an electric mixer. And 15 minutes of mixing time to oxidize it. Then a wait for sediment to settle. Then there’s powder to be made. And finally you have to mix it all up again to do the actual dyeing.

It sounds like a science project.

While I may never chop up my woad and use it for dye, just knowing I can grow such a colorful piece of history is entertaining.

I can’t help but wonder, though, about the poor soul who had to come up with the litmus paper back in the Middle Ages.

Sources for seeds

Pinetree Garden Seeds, Box 300, New Gloucester 04260; telephone 207-926-3400; www.superseeds.com.

On the Web: www.oxbowherbs.com in Oxbow, Maine; www.thymegarden.com in Oregon; and www.richters.com in Canada.

Janine Pineo is a NEWS copy editor.