"The purple carrots have been cultivated in Afghanistan for a thousand years, while white and yellow carrots were common in Northern Europe before the 1600's These early purple and yellow carrots were used for human consumption as well as for animal fodder. By the 14th century, carrots had reached Europe and China. Europeans, preferring the yellow types for their tables, began selecting for culinary attributes such as flavor, texture, and storability. By the 1600s, white and orange carrots emerged on the scene, the latter being prized for the human diet, probably because of its rich color. Over the next 200 years, orange became the carrot color of choice."

I'm sure someone who has far more expertise will have more info. One place that might be of interest to you is the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants at www.monticello.org/chp. Jefferson cultivated a lot of unusual plants, including vegetables and herbs. The Center might have something to offer you in the way of information.

Some SSE members list a black carrot by qualifying that the color is purple, not black.

Spanish Black is a name that has always been applied to a well known heirloom radish. That radish is usually round but can also grow ovoid or slightly elongated in which case I suppose someone somewhere might refer to it as a carrot, which it is not.

There are two excellent books on heirloom veggie history, one is Vilmorin and the other Fearing Burr's, both from the last century and both available in reprint.

The currently offered so called purple carrots, such as Purple Dragon, are modern bred varieties based on the purple carrot; they have yellow interiors. The goal has been to breed carrots with higher carotene content and the same thing is being done with cukes where yellow /orange fleshed ones are now bing released.

And as far as I'm concerned those purple carrots such as Purple Dragon don't taste very good at all. LOL I consider them to be a novelty.

Carolyn

Have you checked out St Marthe in France and Association Kokopelli ( formerly Terre de Semances) to see if they carry any of the original purple ones?

Carolyn, wondering why a seed preservation group isn't offering seeds to others b/c that kind of goes against all that stands for dissemination of varieties in order to preserve varieties.

Also useful info at the Carrot Museum

Robert

She has listed: Chantenay Red Core, Scarlet Nantes and... that's it for multicoloured or rather non orange coloured carrots.

It says that the Chanteney are nice and sweet and that the Scarlet is sweet and brittle.

A great site with lots of information on purple carrots;

http://www.purple-carrots.com

Hope it helps! :D

Hope this helps!