7/17/2017 Bast fibre - Wikipedia

Bast fibre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bast fibre (also called phloem fibre or skin fibre) is plant fibre collected
from the phloem (the "inner bark", sometimes called "skin") or bast
surrounding the stem of certain dicotyledonous plants. They support the
conductive cells of the phloem and provide strength to the stem. Some of
the economically important bast fibres are obtained from herbs cultivated
in agriculture, as for instance flax, hemp, or ramie, but also bast fibres from
wild plants, as stinging nettle, and trees such as lime or linden, wisteria,
and mulberry have been used in the past.[1] Bast fibres are classified as soft
fibres, and are flexible.[2] Fibres from monocotyledonous plants, called
"leaf fibre", are classified as hard fibres and are stiff.[2]
Flax stem cross-section, showing
Since the valuable fibres are located in the phloem, they must often be locations of underlying tissues. Ep =
separated from the xylem material ("woody core"), and sometimes also epidermis; C = cortex; BF = bast
from the epidermis. The process for this is called retting, and can be fibres; P = phloem; X = xylem; Pi =
performed by micro-organisms either on land (nowadays the most pith
important) or in water, or by chemicals (for instance high pH and chelating
agents) or by pectinolytic enzymes. In the phloem, bast fibres occur in bundles that are glued together by pectin
and calcium ions. More intense retting separates the fibre bundles into elementary fibres, that can be several
centimetres long. Often bast fibres have higher tensile strength than other kinds, and are used in high-quality
textiles (sometimes in blends with cotton or synthetic fibres), ropes, yarn, paper, composite materials and burlap.
An important property of bast fibres is that they contain a special structure, the fibre node, that represents a weak
point, and gives flexibility. Seed hairs, such as cotton, do not have nodes.

Use of bast fibre

Examples are:

Flax (Linen)
Hemp
Jute
Kenaf
Kudzu
Nettle
Okra
Paper Mulberry
Ramie
Roselle hemp

Bast fibres are processed for use in carpet, yarn, rope, geotextile (netting or matting), traditional carpets, hessian or
burlap, paper, sacks, etc. Bast fibres are also used in the non-woven, moulding, and composite technology
industries for the manufacturing of non-woven mats and carpets, composite boards as furniture materials,
automobile door panels and headliners, etc. From prehistoric times through at least the early 20th century, bast
shoes were woven from bast strips in the forest areas of Eastern Europe.

Where no other source of tanbark was available, bast has also been used for tanning leather.[3]

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7/17/2017 Bast fibre - Wikipedia

References
1. Mary Dusenbury (1992), "A Wisteria Grain Bag And Other Tree Bast Fiber Textiles Of Japan" (http://digitalcommons.u
nl.edu/tsaconf/569/), Textiles in Daily Life: Proceedings of the Third Biennial Symposium of the Textile Society of
America, September 2426 1992
2. Esau, K. (1977). Anatomy of seed plants. New York: John Wiley and Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-24520-9.
3. "Production of Russia Leather" (http://www.thehcc.org/Juchten.pdf) (PDF). The Honourable Cordwainers' Company.
1807. p. 2.

External links
International Jute Study Group (http://www.jute.org/plant_1.htm)
Bast Fibre cords in Viking ships (http://www.regia.org/Ships1.htm)
Bast fibre production with hemp (http://www.madehow.com/Volume-6/Industrial-Hemp.html)

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Categories: Fiber plants Plant anatomy Natural materials

This page was last edited on 23 May 2017, at 23:01.

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