PHORMIUM TENAX, Forster, is the Koradi or Harakeke, or New Zealand flax plant. There are several varieties, which yield flax of vary ing degrees of fineness. It is a plant likely to thrive on most of the lower hill ranges of British India, and to prove especially suitable for culture on parts of coffee estates in which the coffee has died out. Its fibre or flax, when well prepared, is superior in strength and equal in other respects to European flax, so that it seems very desirable that its culture should be encour aged. The comparative tenacity, according to Dr. Lindley, is—Silk, 34 ; New Zealand flax, 23 ; European flax, 16 ; European hemp, 11.
The Phormium is a flag-like plant, with sword shaped leaves, and bears its flowers on a stalk like the American aloe. The flower contains a sweet juice. It is much liked by children, and is collected by the natives in their calabashes to the extent of half a pint from a plant. At the root of the leaves a gum-like substance is found, which serves the Maori as a substitute for sealing-wax and glue, and is also eaten. The pith of the dried flower-stalk when ignited burns like tinder, and is used as a slow match to carry fire on a journey. The leaf when green is used for writing on, the characters being engraved with a sharp-edged shell. Split and cut into strips, it serves instead of cords, strings, ropes, straps, etc., and is in dispensable to the natives as a means of binding in building huts and canoes. The green strips of the leaves are plaited by the women into neat baskets, which at meals serve as plates and dishes; while the men make lines, nets, and sails of them. They also extract the fibre, dye it of various colours, and thus get material for mats and gar ments. The plant covers millions of acres in New Zealand, growing spontaneously on any kind of soil, moist or dry, and in any locality, high or low. It, however, attains its greatest luxuriance in moist alluvial soil. The leaf in structure resembles that of the agave. The separation of
the fibre may be effected by means of maceration, or mechanical force applied so as not to injure the bast-cells, sometimes combining both these means. The natives, who use only the upper part of the leaf and only on one side of it, clean the fibre by scraping off the parenchyma with a shell. The quantity prepared by them was very small, and the Government of New Zealand, being im pressed with the great value of the flax as an article of export, offered some years ago a reward of £4000 for a machine that would clean the fibre rapidly and effectively. In a small factory near Nelson the process employed was to boil the leaves in lye-water, then to dry and twist them into a thick rope, after which they were passed between ribbed wooden rollers, until the fibre was laid bare in a tolerable state of purity. The dried and bleached produce thus prepared was sold for £25 per ton. In 1860, the Rev. Mr. Purchas invented a machine for cleaning the flax, consisting essentially of a large solid cylinder or drum of hard wood, revolving, and so put together that its surface presents the cross section of the wood. Above it are a number of perpendicular iron plates, grooved on their lower edges, which, being raised, descend in succession by their own weight. The green leaves are passed between the drum and the iron pounders, when the action of the latter, aided by a stream of water, separ ates and cleans the fibre. A steam-engine of 8 horse power works the machine, which will clean a ton of fresh leaves, yielding 3 cwt. of flax, per day. It has been tried on other fibrous plants, and found equally suited for the agave, Manilla hemp, and pine-apple. In October 1872, the sale of its fibre in London was 11,500 bales, value £19 to £31. Its tow for paper sells from £10 to £20 the ton.—Dr. Hochstetter, quoted by Dr. G. Bidie, ; Dr. Bennett, i. p. 76 ; Von Mueller; Sir Joseph Banks in Cook's First Voyage.