phormium

His figure, draped in a large mat woven of "phormium" trimmed with dogskins, was clothed with a pair of cotton drawers, blood-stained from recent combats.

In Search of the Castaways 1873

(The most straight lines i could find in my photos of some harakeke or flax (phormium tenax) that of course aren't straight at all)

Archive 2009-09-01 faerian 2009

(The most straight lines i could find in my photos of some harakeke or flax (phormium tenax) that of course aren't straight at all)

Expectations, bottom lines and other geometry faerian 2009

From the front of the house, the blue strawberry jar planted with phormium and creeping thymes, blue patio chair and blue garage door.

Blue In The Garden-Part Two « Fairegarden 2007

The path which led up to the intrenchment, lay across fields of “phormium” and a grove of beautiful trees, the “kai-kateas” with persistent leaves and red berries; “dracaenas australis,” the “ti-trees” of the natives, whose crown is a graceful counterpart of the cabbage-palm, and

In Search of the Castaways 2003

She is currently researching phormium tenax (New Zealand flax) and its use in 19th-century New Zealand papermaking.

Book & Print in New Zealand: A Guide to Print Culture in New Zealand Penny Griffith 1885

The common nettle, remarks Mr. Lawson, who ranks it with flax, hemp, cotton, phormium, and other fibre-yielding economical plants, has been long known as affording a large proportion of fibre, which has not only been made into ropes and cordage, but also into sewing-thread and beautiful white linen-like cloth of superior quality.

Resources of the Southern Fields and Forests, Medical, Economical, and Agricultural. Being also a Medical Botany of the Confederate States; with Practical Information on the Useful Properties of the Trees, Plants, and Shrubs 1863

Nicholas brought some of the seeds of the New Zealand phormium with him to England in 1815; but unfortunately they lost their vegetative properties during the voyage.

John Rutherford, the White Chief George Lillie Craik 1832

We find it stated in the "Annual Register" for 1819, that about the beginning of that year a favourable report had been made of the suitableness of the phormium for the manufacture both of small and large ropes, after some experiments in the dockyard at Portsmouth.

John Rutherford, the White Chief George Lillie Craik 1832

Valuable, however, as is the phormium for the purposes to which alone it is applied in New Zealand, it would appear that the attempts which have been made to fabricate from it what is properly called cloth have not hitherto been attended with a favourable result.

John Rutherford, the White Chief George Lillie Craik 1832