Short answers, pulled from the story.
The earliest evidence of humans using wild flax as a textile dates back 30,000 years to the Upper Paleolithic period. This discovery was made in the Dzudzuana Cave in the present-day Republic of Georgia. These spun, dyed, and knotted fibers represent a technological leap that predates pottery and agriculture.
Flax seeds contain 42 percent fat, with 54 percent of that fat being omega-3 fatty acids, specifically alpha-linolenic acid. They provide a dense 534 kilocalories per 100 grams and contain small amounts of cyanogenic glycoside. The seeds come in two primary varieties, brown and yellow, with the yellow variety known as solin or Linola developed in Australia in the 1990s.
The transformation of flax into linen begins with retting, a method of rotting away the inner stalk to leave the outer fibers intact. This step can be performed in a pond, stream, field, or tank, followed by breaking, scutching, and heckling to separate the long fibers from the woody core. The resulting fiber is soft, lustrous, and flexible, bundles of which resemble blonde hair.
In 2022, France produced 75 percent of the world's supply of flax, with Normandy alone accounting for nearly one-third of the total global production. World production of raw or retted flax reached 875,995 tonnes in 2022, led by France. The plant thrives in deep loams containing a large proportion of organic matter and is often found growing just above the waterline in cranberry bogs.
In September 2009, Canadian flax exports were contaminated by a deregistered genetically modified cultivar called Triffid. This event raised concerns about the marketability of the cultivar in Europe, where a zero tolerance policy exists regarding unapproved genetically modified organisms. Consequently, Triffid was deregistered in 2010 and never grown commercially in Canada or the United States.
Flax is an emblem of Northern Ireland and is displayed by the Northern Ireland Assembly, appearing in a coronet on the reverse of the British one-pound coin to represent Northern Ireland on coins minted in 1986, 1991, and 2014. Common flax is the national flower of Belarus, symbolizing the country's agricultural heritage and connection to the land.