Any part of a plant is capable of producing usable fibres. Cotton and kapok come from seeds, banana leaves produce useful f ibres, both both the skin and the inside of stems yield important fibres and even fruit can provide fibres such as coir from coconut.
For easy reference I have listed them alphabetically by common names.
ABACA (musa texiilis)
Also known as manilla hemp, Abaca is a member of the banana family, although the fruit is not edible, grown mainly in the Philippines, but also at commercial levels in Ecuador and Costa Rica. The silky fibres come from the leaf stems and were used largely to make twines and ropes before the days of man-made fibres. Now the fibre is usually pulped to make paper products, including bank notes and craft products.
As the strongest of the vegetable fibres, it remains an important crop, with about 90% coming from the Philippines.
FLAX (linum usitatissimum)
Also known as linseed. The seed and oil are also important crops in their own rights. Flax is easily recognised by its flowers... The field being a sea of blue.
Like hemp and nettle, flax gives us two quite different fibres, one to spin a stiff string from the outer skin, and another quite different one from the silky inner fibres of the stem, used to make linen.
Perhaps the property that makes flax different from other fibres is the fact that it thrives in the damp European climate. It is grown, prepared, spun and woven in Europe , often using methods that haven't changed since it was first discovered. In the UK perhaps it remains most thought of in the form of novelty tea towels so often brought home from from days out or holidays.
There is a set of excellent videos on YouTube produced by Christian and Johannes Zinzendorf at the Hermitage. They show in good detail all of the precesses from planting the seed to spinning the prepared fibres, as well as demonstrating an interesting array of equipment from around the world.
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