True Alkanet — The Saga

Alkanna_tinctoria_flowers

Before me stood two test-tubes, one full of olive oil, the other containing pure grain alcohol.  I dropped a fragment of Alkanet (Alkanna tinctoria) root into each, and watched as the fragments drifted down, trailing in each case a tail of bright red pigment, like barnstorming biplanes emitting colored smoke at a county fair, eliciting excited “ahs” from a…

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