PHORMIUM, or New Zealand Flax (also called “New Zealand hemp”), is a fibre obtained from the leaves of Phormium tenax (ord. Liliaceae). The plant is a native of New Zealand, the Chatham Islands, and Norfolk Island; it is now cultivated as an ornamental garden-plant in Europe, and for economic purposes it has been introduced into the Azores. The leaves grow from 3 to 6 and even 9 feet in height and from 2 to 3 inches in breadth, springing from the extremity of a rhizome. After the tuft of leaves has continued growing for about three years a flowering stalk springs up to the height of about 16 feet, and when it comes to maturity the whole plant dies down. Meantime, however, lateral branches or fans have been given off from the main rhizome, and thus the life of the plant is continued by stem as well as seed. Phormium has been treated as a cultivated plant in New Zealand, though only to a limited extent, and with no promising results; for the supplies of the raw material dependence has been principally placed on the abundance of the wild stocks and on sets planted as hedges and boundaries by the Maoris. Among these people the fibre has always been an article of considerable importance, yielding cloaks, mats, cordage, fishing-lines, <fcc., its valuable properties having attracted the attention of traders even before colonists settled in the islands. The leaves, for fibre-yielding purposes, come to maturity in about six months, and the habit of the Maoris is to cut them down twice a year, rejecting the outer and leaving the central immature leaves. Phormium is prepared with great care by native methods, only the mature fibres from the under-side of the leaves being taken. These are collected in water, scraped over the edge of a shell to free them from adhering cellular ...