Cyperus papyruspapyrus sedge

paper reed

• sedge family (Cyperaceae)

• ancient papermaking• native to Africa and SW Asia, e.g.,

Nile, Niger, & Euphrates rivers• thought to be the bulrush from story of

infant Moses

PoD:

Cyperus papyruspapyrus sedge

paper reed

• sedge family (Cyperaceae)• Thor Heyerdahl’s first “Ra” reed boat,

which didn’t quite cross the Atlantic Ocean

• papyrus now found in Americas and around Mediterranean (e.g., Sicily image above from 1901 "Sicily - John L. Stoddard's Lectures”)

• now rare in Nile Delta of Egypt

PoD:

Plants in material culturewood and fibers

http://rockglacier.blogspot.com/2008/10/tree-rings.html http://samuraiknitter.blogspot.com/2008/04/bast-fibers.html

Wood

• wood = secondary xylem of “dicots” [eudicots] and conifers– vascular cambium = “a lateral meristem capable of dividing to

produce additional xylem toward the inside of the stem and phloem toward the outside”

– growth rings from spring (fast) and summer (slow) growth

• stem of monocots with diffuse vascular bundles – palms, bamboo – grow vertically, no secondary radial growth

• banana “trees” – overlapping leaf bases form a false stem

Wood• wood = secondary

xylem of eudicots

Figures from Simpson and Conner-Ogorzaly 1986 Economic Botany – Plants in Our World (1st edition).

Wood

Figures from Simpson and Conner-Ogorzaly 1986 Economic Botany – Plants in Our World (1st edition).

• Arrangement of vascular bundles in eudicot and monocot stems. False stem of banana.

Fiber

• plant, animal, synthetic, semi-synthetic fibers– plant fiber of cellulose – heat OK, termites, mildew– animal fiber of protein – heat makes brittle, dyes

easily, but moths– cellulose-based semi-synthetics: rayon, cellophane,

acetate – petroleum-based synthetics: polyester, acrylic

Plant-based textile fibers

• seed and fruit fibers– cotton, coir

• hard, or leaf, fibers from monocot leaves– sisal, henequen, abaca, pineapple

• soft, or bast, fibers from eudicot stems– hemp, jute, ramie, linen

• Adapted from Simpson and Conner-Ogorzaly 1986 Economic Botany – Plants in Our World (1st edition).

Fiber classification by plant part• seed

– cotton Gossypium spp.• spinning only in “fibers that have structural properties that cause individual

strands to clasp one another when twisted.”– milkweed and kapok fibers too slippery to be spun

• fruit: coconut fiber (coir)• “hard” leaf fibers from monocots

• decorticating (crushing and scraping to remove non-fibrous material)– sisal and henequen Agave sisalana and A. fourcroydes – manila hemp, abaca Musa textilis

• “soft” bast fibers from phloem tissues of dicots• retting (bacterial rotting to separate fibers), skutching (beating and scraping

to remove woody matter), hackling (drawing across comb-like pins).– linen Linum usitatissimum– hemp Cannabis sativa– ramie Boehmeria nivea

Agave leaf fibers• Henequen from Agave fourcroydes• Sisal or sisal hemp from Agave

sisalana• Sisal was primary source of baling

twine before synthetics• Both native to Mexico & Central

America• Sisal now grown in Brasil and

various parts of Africa

• this Agave has a different purpose, what is it?

•(images from Wikipedia)

“Hard” leaf fibers from monocots

Agave sisalana cultivated in TanzaniaImage source: http://www.invasive.org/browse/detail.cfm?imgnum=0009118

“Hard” leaf fibers from monocots

Agave sisalana cultivated in KenyaImage source: http://www.invasive.org/images/768x512/4320069.jpg / Kenneth M. Gale, , Bugwood.org

“Hard” leaf fibers from monocots

Musa textilis - Abacá

Hard fiber from leaf bases“Manila hemp” because of origin in PhilippinesFormerly used in rope, now used in teabags, some rope, and composites in auto industry

“Hard” leaf fibers from monocots

Flax / linen

bast fibers

Linum usitatissimumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flax

http://www.ag.ndsu.nodak.edu/plantsci/breeding/flax/

“Soft” bast fibers from eudicots

processing linen

• http://dohistory.org/diary/themes/textile/textile_illustration.html

retting (bacterial rotting to separate fibers), skutching (beating and scraping to remove woody matter), hackling (drawing across comb-like pins).

“Soft” bast fibers from eudicots

“Paper” currency

Currency paper is composed of 25% linen and 75% cotton. Red and blue synthetic fibers of various lengths are distributed evenly throughout the paper. Prior to World War I the fibers were made of silk.

Paper mulberry

Broussonetia papyrifera

Moraceae

http://www.konawaenahs.org/okinawa/samoan.gif