It is colored and flavored primarily by alkanet flower or root and Kashmiri chilies. Green alkanet blooms in spring and early summer. Alkanna tinctoria, the dyer's alkanet or alkanet, is a herb in the borage family. Both sexes visit green alkanet, devil's-bit scabious, and thistle flowers. Green alkanet is an introduced species in the British Isles. In English in the late medieval era, the name alkanet meant "A. tinctoria". The roots of "Hormuzakia aggregata" contain anchusin or alkannin (alkanet red), a red-brown resinoid pigment. Powdered and mixed with oil, the alkanet root is used as a wood stain.