plant id for pigment

[walkabout]

trying to get an id on these flowers, its a vine like plant, only blooms till about midday. they have alot of blue pigment in them, will stain your fingers when you pluck them. also how can i go about making a useable pigment from them? i did some searching but all i came up with was spiderwort, but the pics i found of spiderwort really didnt look very similar.

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[Pat B]

That looks like Asiatic Day Flower. I don't know the botanical name though.
  You might try placing the flowers in denatured alcohol to see if that pulls the color out of the flowers.

[walkabout]

thanks. ive been pruning it to let it spread out, it grows along the front of our shrub and ive grown kind of fond of them.lol for one thing wherever this thing grows theres no weeds so its sort of a win win situation. ive read of boiling flowers to extract the pigments, but it seems like i would need a whole lot of the flowers to do that.

[Pat B]

Most folks consider it a weed! I personally like it and it grows well without much trouble. The definition of a weed is any plant out of place!  I'm a native plant enthousist so the plants I like most folks consider weeds! 

[Hillbilly]

Pat nailed it-it's Asiatic dayflower (Commelina communis)

[walkabout]

yea im kind of fond of it too,lol. i told my girlfriend im pruning it to grow the length of the shrubs because it just looks nice. if i can get some use out of it too it will be a definite plus. stuff grows wicked fast here, within a few days of me harvesting flowers it springs back just as many new ones, of course i only pluck petals to minimize any damage it might do.

[Pat B]

The flowers only last a day anyway. 

[walkabout]

really? i hadnt noticed that they died off after a day interesting though, im glad that i  posted it. i know it will probably take me all year in order to collect a significant amount of petals to ude as pigment though depending on how well i can extract it.lol

[Pat B]

Elderberries are getting ripe about now so you can get dark maroon color from them. Blue is hard to come by.

[Timo]

Pat, you ever  try to get some blue from bachelor buttons?

I found a brilliant orange by accident last year while tending some Asiatic lilies. the stamen I believe? got some on my fingers and had a hard time getting it off!

[Pat B]

Tim, I've never tried any flowers for dye. Chicory also has bright blue flowers like bachelor buttons.  I don't imagine any of these flowers have enough blue pigment in them to effectively use them for dye but I don't know that for sure. 

[jamie]

call it spiderwort up here. its also edible.

[Pat B]

Jamie, this is different from spiderwort.

[jamie]

its asiatic dayflower here too we just call it spiderwort up here

[Pat B]

You crazy New Englanders!     Do you have spiderwort also or is that more Southern?