Phormium Sentence Examples

For a moment it seemed as though the manufacture of hemp from the native Phormium tenax would become a great industry.

The name Phormium is from Gr.

Phormium has been treated as a cultivated plant in New Zealand, though only to a limited extent; for the supplies of the raw material dependence has been principally placed on the abundance of the wild stocks and on sets planted as hedges and boundaries by the Maoris.

Phormium is prepared with great care by native methods, only the mature fibres from the under-side of the leaves being taken.

But up till 1860 it was only native-prepared phormium that was known in the market, and it was on the material so carefully, but wastefully, selected that the reputation of the fibre was built up. The troubles with the Maoris at that period led the colonists to engage in the industry, and the sudden demand for all available fibres caused soon afterwards by the Civil War in America greatly stimulated their endeavours.

Phormium is a cream-coloured fibre with a fine silky gloss, capable of being spun and woven into many of the heavier textures for which flax is used, either alone or in combination with flax.

Sunn hemp, Manila hemp, Sisal hemp, and Phormium (New Zealand flax, which is neither flax nor hemp) are treated separately.

In the most favoured districts one well-grown plant of Phormium will spread into a mass 30 or 40 feet in circumference and 8 to 10 feet high, with flower-stems rising several feet above this.