Luteolin is a flavone, a type of flavonoid, with a yellow crystalline appearance.
Luteolin is the principal yellow dye compound that is obtained from the plant Reseda luteola, which has been used as a source of the dye since at least the first millennium B.C.
Luteolin was first isolated in pure form and named in 1829 by the French chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul. In 1896, the English chemist Arthur George Perkin proposed the correct structure for luteolin, which was confirmed in 1900 when the Polish-Swiss chemist Stanislaw Kostanecki (1860–1910) and his students A. Różycki and J. Tambor synthesized luteolin.
It is present in food items like vegetables such as celery, parsley, artichoke, broccoli, onion leaves, carrots, peppers, cabbages and fruits like apple skins and citrus.
Chrysanthemum flowers and some spices are also rich in luteolin.