PHORMIUM or NEW ZEALAND FLAX (also called "New Zealand hemp"), a fibre obtained from the leaves of Phor mium tenax (family Liliaceae), a native of New Zealand, the Chatham islands and Norfolk island. This plant was discovered by Sir Joseph Banks and Dr. Solander, who accompanied Captain Cook on his first voyage of discovery. It grows luxuriantly in the south of Ireland, where it was introduced in 1798, and also flour ishes on the west coast of Scotland, and is generally cultivated as an ornamental garden plant in the warmer parts of Europe and North America. It has been introduced for economic purposes into the Azores and California. The name Phormium is from Gr. cf•op,u6s, a basket, in allusion to one of the uses made of its leaves by the New Zealanders. It has a fleshy rootstock, creeping be neath the surface of the soil and sending up luxuriant tufts of nar row, sword-shaped leaves, from 4 to 8 ft. long and from 2 to 4 in. in diameter. The leaves are vertical, and arranged in two rows as in the garden flag ; they are very thick, stiff and leathery, dark green above, paler below, with the margin and nerve reddish orange. From the centre of the tuft ultimately arises a tall flower
bearing stem, 5 to 15 ft. high, bearing on its numerous branches a very large number of lurid red or yellow, somewhat tubular flowers, recalling those of an aloe, and from i to 2 in. long. After flowering the plant dies down, but increases by new lateral growths from the rootstock. The plant will grow in almost any soil, but best on light rich soil, by the side of rivers and brooks, where sheltered from the wind.
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. It is, however, principally, a cordage fibre, and in tensile strength it is second only to manila hemp ; but it does not bear so well the alternations of wet and dry to which ship-ropes are subject.