Dye test with blue false indigo, part 1

I like indigo as a color, but I am not thrilled with the process for dyeing yarn with it. I've experienced it only in dye workshops (described here and here), never tried it myself at home. It requires several steps and a certain amount of care or you can easily ruin the dye bath.

However, I do have blue false indigo (Baptisia australis) growing (and growing and GROWING - it spreads by rhizomes) in my yard. Even though false indigo is not related to any of the true indigo producing plants, I figured it would not hurt to test it.

But first, I did a search online to see if anyone else had tried this experiment. I can find references about using false indigo for dyeing (and references that say it is NOT a dye source), but I did not notice anything specific. Please correct me if I am wrong.

I am not quite done with this experiment, but I decided to show you what I have so far. I didn't do anything too fancy, just in case my tests were a total bust. I used alum mordanted Cascade 220 in dye baths containing the blossoms, leaves, stems, pods, or seeds. For each plant part, I poured boiling water over about 12g the plant part, let it set overnight, strained the dye bath, added about 2 yards of yarn, popped it in the microwave for a minute, again let it set overnight, and then rinsed the yarn. The results were a bit surprising.

From left, blossoms, leaves, stems, pods, seeds

No blue, but several shades of green and yellow. The only plant part remaining to test is the root. I'm waiting for the plant to die back this fall before digging up some samples.

Now my interest is piqued. What if I used no mordant or a different mordant? Modified the results post dyeing using an acid or alkaline bath? Used tap water, distilled water, well water, rain water? How light fast are the results? Stayed tooned!