Since ancient times, man has mastered agriculture and cattle breeding as the main types of economic activity. All the products that he received as a result of his labor were used for sewing clothes, making household items and cooking.
From the very beginning, nature takes care of us and provides us with everything we need. Over time, man has learned to use its gifts so widely that today there is probably not a single representative of the flora that is not involved in some area of human economic activity.
What plants play the largest and most significant role in human life? Let's try to understand this issue by characterizing the most common areas of application of herbal products.
Areas of plant use by humans
Of the 340 thousand species known to date, about 200 representatives of the flora have been cultivated by humans. A significant portion is collected in wild habitats. These are, for example, medicinal herbs.
In total, there are several main areas in which beneficial plants for humans are used:
- medicine (both traditional and alternative);
- food industry (including confectionery);
- textile production;
- tailoring;
- chemical production (production of dyes, various raw materials);
- decorative purposes (indoor plants, arrangement and design of premises, city streets);
- landscape design;
- use as a source of oxygen (in space, for example);
- plantings in city zones to improve the ecological state of the environment.
Thus, it turns out that the most significant areas of activity for the normal quality of life and preservation of human health are provided with plant-based raw materials. This makes it possible to assert that it is difficult to overestimate the role of flora for people.
Industrial processing
The color of the cocoon depends on the type of silkworm. They come in reddish-yellow, white, and yellowish colors. Other types of silkworms are also bred that weave soft pink, green, and blue cocoons. It should, however, be said that the natural color of the threads is not stable. In addition, colored fibers can subsequently complicate the dyeing process. Before subsequent use in industry, cocoons are bleached.
To obtain high-quality fibers, cocoons are treated with steam or hot air. The pupae contained in them are killed, and to prevent decomposition, they are dried. If this is not done, the insect will turn into a butterfly and begin to emerge from the cocoon. Accordingly, it will be subject to mechanical destruction, which negatively affects the quality of the threads. Before the fibers begin to wind, the cocoons are placed in pools filled with hot water. Then they are treated with steam and alkaline solutions. This is necessary to soften sericin. One cocoon produces about 400-1200 m of thread. However, it is very thin. Therefore, fibers from 3 to 30 cocoons are combined into one.
Useful plants for humans
There are a lot of them. Each area of use has its own. For example, the chemical industry uses plants from which natural dyes are obtained. In the same area of use is Hevea - a tree whose milky sap is natural rubber. The beneficial properties of plants have been known to man since ancient times and are widely used.
The food industry generally knows no boundaries in the use of plant products: from different varieties of wheat, barley, rye and other grains to cultivated fruits and root vegetables. After all, everything that grows in our gardens is used for food. People receive valuable proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, micro- and macroelements from plants: rice, buckwheat, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, ocean algae, etc., etc.
Plants also play an important aesthetic role in human life. Indoor species are widespread and numerous. In addition to beauty, they carry the ability to purify and renew the air of a room, absorb and destroy harmful radiation and electromagnetic influences, eliminate negative energy and clean the air from pathogenic microbes. Such plants include:
- cacti;
- Saintpaulia;
- pelargoniums;
- begonias;
- different types of ferns;
- milkweeds and other succulents and so on.
The role of some flora representatives in the textile industry is very significant. Do you know the name of the plants that “dress” a person and give him towels, bed linen, scarves and other products of this industry? The main ones grown on a large scale include cotton and flax. Let's look at these and some other types in more detail.
Classification
Fabrics are made from fibers, which are divided into two main groups: natural (natural) and chemical. Natural fibers are of plant and animal origin. A special mineral fiber is asbestos; it is extracted from certain types of silicate ore.
Natural materials are classified according to the origin of the fibers from which they are woven.
Vegetable
The raw materials for the production of natural plant materials are various parts of plants. The production process varies slightly, but the general idea is that natural fiber is collected, processed until it is pliable, then spun.
Many industrial crops are grown around the world to produce natural fabrics. The most popular are cotton, jute, flax, and hemp. But there are lesser-known crops from which very durable plant fiber is also extracted - agave, sisal, abaca and others. They are used to produce fabrics for household and technical purposes - sails, covers, awnings. In Asia, pineapple and coconut fibers are still collected, and mats, sacks, and bags are woven on home looms.
Yucca threads are added to cotton to produce jeans from expensive American brands. They increase the service life of denim several times, allowing it to age gracefully rather than wear out.
Fabrics derived from plants have a long, rich history. Many of them are forgotten, like the kutra bark material. Thin and durable, easily dyed with natural dyes, they were part of the culture of North American peoples before the white man came to the continent.
Ramie (white nettle) is on the decline of its popularity and is primarily used as an additive to cotton. It’s not like during the Renaissance, when high society went crazy over the delicate ramie, flowing like silk, brought by travelers from India, not wrinkled, durable, not subject to rotting. Most likely, those same scarlet sails were not made of silk, but of ramie, which in appearance is not much different from it, but is much easier to dye and costs less.
Woven materials are also produced from plant raw materials, more precisely from the cellulose of some plants (pine, bamboo, eucalyptus), for example, viscose or lyocell. However, they are not natural, since they are not obtained from plant fibers, but through the action of chemicals on organic mass under specific conditions.
Animals
Animal natural fabrics are divided into two groups: wool and silk. They are united by the manufacturing process: fibers obtained from animals or insects are cleaned, spun, and only then they begin to weave.
Animal wool is used to produce fabrics:
- sheep and goats;
- camels, alpacas, llamas;
- yakov;
- rabbits.
At home, they even spin dog hair, from which they then create cozy home knitwear, from socks to blankets and shawls, by hand or on knitting machines.
Scientists have not come to a consensus which tissues - plant or animal origin - appeared first in human life. Roman togas, like Greek tunics, were first made of wool. Much later, with the development of trade, they began to be made from flax. Cotton was considered a luxury item in both Greece and Rome in ancient times.
The majority of all wool materials in the world are made from the wool of sheep that are specially bred for this purpose. According to market experts, the number of sheep in the world has long crossed the one and a half billion mark, which, first of all, indicates the demand for natural wool fabrics.
Author:
Zakharova Nina Afanasyevna
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