Lawsonia inermis

This leaf is where henna comes from, the dye used to paint hands and hair for thousands of years across North Africa, the Middle East and India. The color lives in the dried, ground leaf, which carries 0.5 to 2% lawsone, the molecule that stains. The plant also flowers in creamy clusters with an intense perfume, close to tea rose. It's a tough shrub, spiny as it ages, that takes drought and pruning — which is why in its homeland it is a hedge plant too.

This is the sun-and-drought plant of the catalog: it wants the brightest spot and the best-draining soil you have, even if poor, stony or heavy. It tolerates anywhere from 250 to over 4,000 mm of rain a year, but it truly thrives between 500 and 1,500, so in our humid climate it will thank you for a rise, a bank or a large pot rather than a hollow. Full sun, always. Multiply from seed soaked 3 to 7 days, or from cuttings. The best leaf harvests come in the first 4 to 8 years.

Not edible. Its harvest is the leaf, for dye, not for the table.

It's an astringent, antibacterial herb with a long tradition: used for diarrhea and dysentery, for sore throats, and applied to the skin for wounds, ulcers and skin complaints. The twigs have been used as a toothbrush.

A support species of the medium stratum with a secondary life cycle, for the dry, sunny edge of the system. Since it takes hard pruning, it works as a living fence along boundaries, and every cut leaves leaf for dye and stems for the soil. Plant 1–2 m apart as a hedge, 2–3 m as a single bush.