Vegetable fiber

Description

Any fiber obtained from plant sources. Plant fibers are obtained from the bark (flax, hemp, jute), stems or leaves (abaca, sisal) and seeds (cotton) of various plants. Plant fibers, in general will flame when exposed to fire while animal fibers will only char. Plants fibers can be characterized by several methods (See Goodway, 1987). When wetted, then dried, some plant fibers will have a right-hand rotation (flax and ramie), while most other vegetable fibers have a subtle left-handed rotation. Cotton, however collapses randomly with both right- and left-handed twists. Fibers from wood and bark have connecting, elongated cells such as seen in linen, hemp and groundwood paper.

Synonyms and Related Terms

plant fibers; plant fibre (Br.); vegetable fiber; fibre végétale (Fr.);fibras vegetales(Esp.)

Additional Images

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Sources Checked for Data in Record

• Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Dictionary of Fiber & Textile Technology (older version called Man-made Fiber and Textile Dictionary, 1965), Hoechst Celanese Corporation, Charlotte NC, 1990

• S.R.Trotman, E.R. Trotman, Textile Analysis, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia, 1932

• Rosalie Rosso King, Textile Identification, Conservation, and Preservation, Noyes Publications, Park Ridge, NJ, 1985

• Art and Architecture Thesaurus Online, http://www.getty.edu/research/tools/vocabulary/aat/, J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles, 2000