Another New Fibre.

Manawatu Herald, Volume III, 16 March 1891, Page 3

Another New Fibre.

The latest addition to William Bendt's collection of curio's from the North (says the San Francisco Ecdaminer) is a bunch of fluffy little bolls that are deserving of more than the casual inspection of the curious, for the reason that they may lead to a new industry of valuable proportions. Wild cotton the sailors call them', but a much more appropriate nanie woiild be vegetable silk. No material • more resembles the floss that bursts put of the stalks of this strange Alaskan plant than would a similar sized bunch of the finest cocoon silk. The bolls are from l£in. to 2in. in diameter, and the threads haye about the same length. There are thousands of threads in each boll, tthe thread is as fine as the finest thread of the silkVstorm. They possess* a great deal more lustre than than silk, and the threads have just about as much tensile strength. The colouring is as* rich as that of a South Sea sunset. A breath parts the boll to the very heart, just as the fur of a seal skin separates under the same influence, and the roots of the threads are disclosed to be of a light orange, which shades through a rich tea-rose colour to silver grey at the tips. The support of the bolls is a single slender stem, hollow and leafless, and of a pale green colour. A tiny pod, scarcely a quarter of an inch thick by a half long, encloses the floss until it bursts under the influence of the sun. The plant was discovered by a party of deer hunters, who report that it grows so thickly that pedestrians cannot help treading ittundar foot, and that beds of it aprer* countless miles of Alaska sear ■ ' - ■■■'-' : ■•■•'"