Here is a wiki page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cochineal/ Jim McKenney wrote: >Yes, John, but it seems to be more confusing than that. > >Both kermes and cochineal come from scale insects. Kermes, as you note, has >an ancient history in Old World: as the saying goes, and as you note, the >Greeks had a word for it. > >The dye from the New World scale insects (cochineal) is much more readily >and profitably collected than kermes. And some think that the color is >better. > >Doesn't the word cochineal refer specifically to the product obtained from >the New World scale cultivated by the Aztecs and exploited so successfully >by the Spanish? The cochineal trade in Europe is probably nearly five >hundred years old: like the Tigridia, cochineal must have been one of the >first of the new things to arrive in Europe from the New World. > >Jim McKenney >Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, USDA zone 7, where we are all red faced >this morning, and it has nothing to do with either embarrassment or >cochineal: it's the nearly unbearable heat and humidity. > >_______________________________________________ >pbs mailing list >pbs@lists.ibiblio.org >http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > > > >