Piassava
Piassava, also piaçava (), piaçaba (), piasaba, pissaba, piassaba, and piaçá (),The piaçá form occurs mostly in Portugal and is considered less correct by some dictionaries. is a fibrous product of Brazilian palm species '' Attalea funifera'' and ''Leopoldinia piassaba''. It is often used in making brooms and for other purposes. Piassava was historically exported to Europe before the widespread use of synthetic materials such as plastic. Today, it is mostly used locally in South America. See also * West African piassava palm References * Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon Vol. I by Lieutenant William Lewis Herndon (1853) chapter 14, p. 285 * ''Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's ...'' (1913) Plant common names ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Fiber Crop
Fiber crops are field crops grown for their fibers, which are traditionally used to make paper, cloth, or rope. Fiber crops are characterized by having a large concentration of cellulose, which is what gives them their strength. The fibers may be chemically modified, like in viscose (used to make rayon and cellophane). In recent years, materials scientists have begun exploring further use of these fibers in composite materials. Due to cellulose being the main factor of a plant fiber's strength, this is what scientists are looking to manipulate to create different types of fibers. Fiber crops are generally harvestable after a single growing season, as distinct from trees, which are typically grown for many years before being harvested for such materials as wood pulp fiber or lacebark. In specific circumstances, fiber crops can be superior to wood pulp fiber in terms of technical performance, environmental impact or cost. There are a number of issues regarding the use of fiber c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area and the seventh most populous. Its capital is Brasília, and its most populous city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 States of Brazil, states and the Federal District (Brazil), Federal District. It is the largest country to have Portuguese language, Portuguese as an List of territorial entities where Portuguese is an official language, official language and the only one in the Americas; one of the most Multiculturalism, multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass Immigration to Brazil, immigration from around the world; and the most populous Catholic Church by country, Roman Catholic-majority country. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a Coastline of Brazi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Arecaceae
The Arecaceae is a family of perennial flowering plants in the monocot order Arecales. Their growth form can be climbers, shrubs, tree-like and stemless plants, all commonly known as palms. Those having a tree-like form are called palm trees. Currently, 181 genera with around 2,600 species are known, most of which are restricted to tropical and subtropical climates. Most palms are distinguished by their large, compound, evergreen leaves, known as fronds, arranged at the top of an unbranched stem. However, palms exhibit an enormous diversity in physical characteristics and inhabit nearly every type of habitat within their range, from rainforests to deserts. Palms are among the best known and most extensively cultivated plant families. They have been important to humans throughout much of history. Many common products and foods are derived from palms. In contemporary times, palms are also widely used in landscaping. In many historical cultures, because of their importance as ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Attalea Funifera
''Attalea funifera'', the Bahia piassava, is a species of palm (family Arecaceae), native to eastern Brazil. It is a major source of piassava fiber Fiber or fibre (from la, fibra, links=no) is a natural or artificial substance that is significantly longer than it is wide. Fibers are often used in the manufacture of other materials. The strongest engineering materials often incorporate ..., used in brooms and brushes. References funifera Fiber plants Endemic flora of Brazil Flora of Northeast Brazil Flora of Southeast Brazil Plants described in 1826 {{Cocoseae-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Leopoldinia Piassaba
''Leopoldinia piassaba'', the Para piassava, piassava fiber palm or piassava palm, is a palm native to black water rivers in Amazonian Brazil and Venezuela, from which is extracted piassava, a high caliber and water resistant fiber. Piassaba fiber is made into brooms, baskets, and other products. This plant is also a natural habitat of the '' Rhodnius brethesi'', which is a potential vector of Chagas disease, and it is cited in Flora Brasiliensis by Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius. References * Schultes, Richard E. (1974). ''Palms and religion in the northwest Amazon.'' Principes 18 (1): 3-21. ''Astrocaryum vulgare'', ''Bactris gasipaes'', '' Euterpe oleracea'', '' E. precatoria'', ''Leopoldinia piassaba'', '' Maximiliana martiana'', ''Oenocarpus bacaba'', ''Socratea exorrhiza ''Socratea exorrhiza'', the walking palm or cashapona, is a palm native to rainforests in tropical Central and South America. It can grow to 25 metres in height, with a stem diameter of up to 16&n ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Broom
A broom (also known in some forms as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. It is thus a variety of brush with a long handle. It is commonly used in combination with a dustpan. A distinction is made between a "hard broom" and a "soft broom" and a spectrum in between. Soft brooms are used in some cultures chiefly for sweeping walls of cobwebs and spiders, like a "feather duster", while hard brooms are for rougher tasks like sweeping dirt off sidewalks or concrete floors, or even smoothing and texturing wet concrete. The majority of brooms are somewhere in between, suitable for sweeping the floors of homes and businesses, soft enough to be flexible and to move even light dust, but stiff enough to achieve a firm sweeping action. The broom is also a symbolic object associated with witchcraft and ceremonial magic. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
West African Piassava Palm
''Raphia vinifera'', the West African piassava palm, bamboo palm or West African bass fibre is a palm tree species in the genus '' Raphia''. It is native to Benin, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Togo, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Ghana, and Democratic Republic of the Congo ( = Zaire = Congo-Kinshasa). It is particularly abundant along the creeks of Niger Delta, Cross River, Lagos and Ikorodu in Nigeria. The nut contains bitter oil, which has the property of stupefying A date rape drug is any drug that incapacitates another person and renders that person vulnerable to sexual assault, including rape. The substances are associated with date rape because of reported incidents of their use in the context of two p ... fish.Otedoh, M.O. 1982. Journal of the Nigerian Institute for Oil Palm Research 6(22): 161, ''Raphia vinifera'' var. ''nigerica'' References External links {{Taxonbar, from=Q163473 vinifera Flora of Benin Flora of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Flora ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Exploration Of The Valley Of The Amazon
''Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon'' is a two volume publication by two young USN lieutenants William Lewis Herndon (vol. 1) and Lardner A. Gibbon (vol. 2). Gibbon's dates: Aug. 13, 1820 - Jan. 10, 1910. Herndon split the main party in two so that he and Gibbon could explore two different areas of the Valley of the Amazon. The Expedition In 1851 William Lewis Herndon was ordered to head an expedition exploring the Valley of the Amazon – a vast uncharted area. Departing Lima, Peru, 21 May 1851, Lieut. Herndon, Lieut. Lardner Gibbon, and a small party of six men pressed into the wild and treacherously beautiful jungles. They split up and took different routes to gather even more information on this vast area. After a remarkable journey of 4,366 dangerous miles, which took Herndon through wilderness from sea level to heights of 16,199 feet, Herndon reached the city of Pará, Brazil on 11 April 1852. On 26 January 1853 Herndon submitted an encyclopedic and profusely illust ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
William Lewis Herndon
Commander William Lewis Herndon (25 October 1813 – 12 September 1857) was one of the United States Navy's outstanding explorers and seamen. In 1851 he led a United States expedition to the Valley of the Amazon, and prepared a report published in 1854 and distributed widely as ''Exploration of the Valley of the Amazon''. He was noted especially for ensuring the rescue of 152 women and children when commanding the commercial mail steamer ''Central America'' in September 1857. During a three-day hurricane off the coast of North Carolina, the ship lost power. Herndon arranged for getting some women and children safely off the ship to another vessel. With no way to save the ship, Herndon chose to stay with more than 400 passengers and crew who drowned as the ship sank off Cape Hatteras on September 12. It was the largest loss of life in a commercial ship disaster in United States history. Two years later his daughter Ellen Lewis Herndon married Chester A. Arthur, the future ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Webster's Dictionary
''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's name in honor. "''Webster's''" has since become a genericized trademark in the United States for English dictionaries, and is widely used in dictionary titles. Merriam-Webster is the corporate heir to Noah Webster's original works, which are in the public domain. Noah Webster's ''American Dictionary of the English Language'' Noah Webster (1758–1843), the author of the readers and spelling books which dominated the American market at the time, spent decades of research in compiling his dictionaries. His first dictionary, s:A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, ''A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language'', appeared in 1806. In it, he popularized features which would become a hallmark of American English spelling (''c ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
|
Plant Common Names
Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclude the fungi and some algae, as well as the prokaryotes (the archaea and bacteria). By one definition, plants form the clade Viridiplantae (Latin name for "green plants") which is sister of the Glaucophyta, and consists of the green algae and Embryophyta (land plants). The latter includes the flowering plants, conifers and other gymnosperms, ferns and their allies, hornworts, liverworts, and mosses. Most plants are multicellular organisms. Green plants obtain most of their energy from sunlight via photosynthesis by primary chloroplasts that are derived from endosymbiosis with cyanobacteria. Their chloroplasts contain chlorophylls a and b, which gives them their green color. Some plants are parasitic or mycotrophic and have lost the ability ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |