Page 19 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

2: Natural fibres
Natural fibres may be solid (if they grow from the skin of an animal), or they may be long tubelike cells (if from a plant). Natural fibres are turned into fabrics or made into paper.
There are many natural fibres, including silk, cotton, hemp, jute, raffia, and wool, but only a few have suitable strength, flexibility, resistance to wear, and other properties to make them useful to people.
Leaf fibre
Flax
Cotton
Silk
Leaf fibre comes from flowering plants with parallel-veined leaves such as grasses and
palms. Commonly used leaf fibres include
hemp and sisal. The agave family of plants
has long, sword-shaped leaves, which have
fibre bundles many tens of centimetres long. They are used by the plant to strengthen the leaf. The fibres are made of many overlapping cells stuck together with natural gums.
The fibres from leaves are usually hard, stiff, and coarse. It is usually not worthwhile trying to separate out the fibres, and they are kept as natural fibre bundles and sold for cord and rope. Sisal is the most important such crop.
All leaf plants are difficult and expensive to harvest and of low value when put on the market. As a result, they are open to competition from artificial fibres.
(Above) Natural fibres have a variety of shapes.
(Right) Sisal is a coarse, tough leaf fibre. It is not comfortable but good for scraping when knitted into a mit such as this scouring glove.
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