148 Vegetable Fibres Available for 
It seems, therefore, to find its natural use in coarse fabrics, 
where cheapness and weight of cloth are the first conside- 
rations. All the tests through which it has passed have 
not brought out any properties which would suggest for it 
a desirable use for the higher classes of fabrics. 
New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax). This fibre has a 
great name (In prospective?) It forms one of the splendid 
colourings used to impart a roseate hue to the colony. It 
grows toa great length, being the veins of a liliaceous 
leaf, lying behind a tough epidermis, which is difficult to 
separate completely except treated in a green state. When 
simply separated from the epidermis, its toughness exceeds 
that of every other fibre. As a rope material, when un- 
cleansed, it is very strong, but does not possess much 
binding property. Like all the other endogens, the fibres 
are built up of very short cells, which do not exceed three- 
eighths of an inch in length, of great brilliance, of moderate 
fineness, brittle, stiff, and possessing none of the properties 
necessary for spinning so short a material. After the fibre 
has been cleansed from loose matter, the cells bristle out 
to an unusual degree, which has doubtless given rise to the 
mistaken idea that a good fibre would be obtained for tex-— 
tile fabrics. No delusion can be greater than the supposi- 
tion that the fibre can be thus useful in a completely 
separated state. It is, however, able to be cleansed and 
divided into a flax-cotton of unequal finenessof filament, and 
of length and other properties adapted for producing heavy 
useful fabrics. More brittle and more glossy than a similar 
material from any of the exogens (consequently less use- 
ful), yet, for these fabrics, it may realize some of the too 
glowing hopes entertained for it; though itsgreatest utility 
will be for cordage, for which purpose, considering its low 
procurable price, it ought to be largely used. As a 
cleansed fibre, it dyes no better than any other, is difficult 
to bleach, and though the cells are so short and _ brilliant 
they possess none of the soft, pulpy, felting property found 
in Pine-apple or Yercum fibre. The ordinary methods em- 
ployed to cleanse and prepare other fibres, only render 
Phormium tenax harder and more brittle. Amongst the 
extraneous matter lying on the fibre, is found an oil, a true 
resin and tannin; yet, probably water and beating are the 
only agents employed by the Maories in its preparation 
for their uses. It is scarcely to be supposed that these 
matters can be utilised with advantage, as has been pro- 
posed. The fibre appears to be obtainable in large quanti- 
