Linum crepitans (Boenn.) Dumort. Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, Linum usitatissimum, within the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a meals and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. Textiles made from flax are recognized in English as linen and are traditionally used for bed sheets, underclothes, and table linen. Its oil is called linseed oil. In addition to referring to the plant, the word “flax” might seek advice from the unspun fibers of the flax plant. Linum bienne, known as pale flax. The plants called “flax” in New Zealand are, by distinction, members of the genus Phormium. Several other species in the genus Linum are related in appearance to L. usitatissimum, cultivated flax, including some which have similar blue flowers, and others with white, yellow, or purple flowers. Some of these are perennial plants, not like L. usitatissimum, which is an annual plant. Cultivated flax plants develop to 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) tall, with slender stems.
The leaves are glaucous green, slender lanceolate, 20-forty mm lengthy, and 3 mm broad. The flowers are 15-25 mm in diameter with five petals, which will be colored white, blue, yellow, and pink depending on the species. The fruit is a spherical, dry capsule 5-9 mm in diameter, containing several glossy brown seeds shaped like an apple pip, 4-7 mm long. The earliest evidence of humans using wild flax as a textile comes from the present-day Republic of Georgia, the place spun, dyed, and knotted wild flax fibers present in Dzudzuana Cave date to the Upper Paleolithic, 30,000 years ago. Humans first domesticated flax in the Fertile Crescent area. 9,000 years ago. Use of the crop steadily unfold, reaching so far as Switzerland and Germany by 5,000 years ago. In China and India, domesticated flax was cultivated at the least 5,000 years in the past. Flax was cultivated extensively in historical Egypt, where the temple partitions had paintings of flowering flax, and mummies have been embalmed using linen.
Egyptian priests wore only linen, as flax was thought of a logo of purity. Phoenicians traded Egyptian linen throughout the Mediterranean and the Romans used it for his or her sails. As the Roman Empire declined, so did flax manufacturing. But with laws designed to publicize the hygiene of linen textiles and the health of linseed oil, Charlemagne revived the crop within the eighth century CE. Eventually, Flanders became the major middle of the European linen business within the Middle Ages. Twentieth century, cheap cotton and rising farm wages had brought on manufacturing of flax to turn into concentrated in northern Russia, which came to supply 90% of the world’s output. Since then, flax has lost its significance as a business crop, due to the easy availability of extra durable fibres. Flax is grown for its seeds, which can be floor right into a meal or changed into linseed oil, a product used as a nutritional complement and as an ingredient in lots of wood-finishing products. Flax can be grown as an ornamental plant in gardens.
Moreover, flax fibers are used to make linen. The particular epithet in its binomial identify, usitatissimum, means “most helpful”. Flax fibers taken from the stem of the plant are two to three times as robust as cotton fibers. Additionally, flax fibers are naturally smooth and straight. Europe and North America each depended on flax for plant-primarily based cloth until the nineteenth century, when cotton overtook flax as the most common plant for making rag-based paper. Flax is grown on the Canadian prairies for linseed oil, which is used as a drying oil in paints and varnishes and in products comparable to linoleum and printing inks. Linseed meal, the by-product of producing linseed oil from flax seeds, is used as livestock fodder. Flax seeds occur in two primary varieties/colors: brown or yellow (golden linseeds). Most varieties of those fundamental varieties have similar nutritional characteristics and equal numbers of brief-chain omega-3 fatty acids. 3s (alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), particularly).
Flax seeds produce a vegetable oil generally known as flax seed oil or linseed oil, which is one of the oldest commercial oils. It is an edible oil obtained by expeller urgent and typically followed by solvent extraction. Solvent-processed flax seed oil has been used for many centuries as a drying oil in painting and varnishing. Although brown flax seed varieties could also be consumed as readily because the yellow ones, and have been for hundreds of years, these varieties are extra generally utilized in paints, for fiber, and for cattle feed. A 100-gram portion of ground flax seed provides about 2,234 kilojoules (534 kilocalories) of meals power, 41 g of fats, 28 g of fiber, and 20 g of protein. Whole flax seeds are chemically stable, however floor flax seed meal, because of oxidation, could go rancid when left uncovered to air at room temperature in as little as a week. Refrigeration and storage in sealed containers will keep ground flax seed meal for an extended interval before it turns rancid.
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