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Indigo
Austral Indigo - Indigofera
australis
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Ii
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The Austral Indigo is a slender shrub to about 1.5 metres tall with long sprays of pale purple flowers which appear in spring. The name indigo comes from a purple dye that can be extracted from the plant. This dye was widely used to colour cloth and carpets in the 19th century before artificial dyes had been created.
The original indigo plant came from India but the Australian species has a similar dye in it which was used by the Aborigines before, and shortly after, the white settlers arrived. The Aborigines also found another use for the Austral Indigo, they found that when they crushed the roots, the liquid that came out was poisonous to fish but the dead fish were all right to be eaten. So they would put the crushed roots of the Austral Indigo into pools and billabongs as a way to catch fish for food.
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