Linen

Annual and perennial herbs with whole leaves arranged alternately or occasionally opposite.

The flowers are strictly five-dimensional. In addition to five developed stamens , there are five underdeveloped in the form of cloves or threads sitting against the petals ; whole ovary .

The fruit is a five-nosed box , each nest of which is subdivided into two more half-nests containing one seed . Seeds are oily.

More than a hundred species belong to the genus Flax, of which the most important is ordinary flax, or spinning ( Linum usitatissimum L. ) - annual bare or almost bare (without hairs) grass ; the stem is 30 to 60 cm tall, and in warmer countries , such as India , is even higher; branches only in the upper part, in inflorescence ; leaves are alternate, narrow-lanceolate; flowers are collected at the top in the form of a false umbrella ; sepals pointed, finely ciliate; the petals are blue with a grayish tint, sometimes white, broad-toothed, the anthers are blue, the spout (linen head in vernacular) is almost spherical, the seeds are glossy.

Flax is not mowed, but pulled out with a root-teasing. Previously, this work was done manually, but now there are special machines for this. Flax stalks are tied in sheaves, dried and threshed to separate the seeds. At the creamery, fragrant oil is squeezed out of them, which is suitable for food, but most often it is used for the preparation of drying oils (the basis for varnishes and paints), as well as for the manufacture of soap. Flaxseed is also used as a medicine.

Flax has been cultivated since time immemorial, but it is difficult to decide undoubtedly where its original fatherland is. With respect to annual flax, it is most likely that it comes from the Eastern Mediterranean ( Transcaucasia , Anatolia , Western Persia ). It easily runs wild and is shown by the authors in many countries to be wild or feral, including in southern Russia. Linen yarn consists of strong, completely round bast fibers , sharply sharpened at the extremities, reaching a length of 4 cm or more.

Mostly 2 subspecies of ordinary flax are bred, namely: long flax with a low-branched inflorescence and a higher stem, mainly for yarn, and curls - more squat and with very branched inflorescences - mainly for seeds. Flax seeds, immersed in water, are soon covered with colorless mucus, which comes from the spreading of the skin cells consisting of bassorin .

In the cells of the embryo and a thin layer of nutrient tissue surrounding it, there is predominantly fatty linseed oil containing butyric linolenic acid . The medical and technical value of flaxseed is precisely based on the content of these substances.

The genus, according to various sources, includes from 100 to 200 species. The Plant List database contains 141 valid names of species of the genus Linum ^[2] , some of them ^[3] :

• Mountain flax
• Textile industry
• The economic importance of flax
• Linen fabric

• Flax (auth. Usacheva V.V. ) // Slavic antiquities : Ethnolinguistic dictionary (5 volumes) / Common. ed. N.I. Tolstoy . - M .: International Relations , 2004. - T. 3 (Circle — Quail). - S. 91-96. - 704 s.
• Flax // Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary : in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.

• Russian linen - portal of the flax industry
• All-Russian Research Institute for Bast Processing
• Department of production of flax fiber KSTU
• Museum of Flax and Birch Bark. Kostroma