mountain flax
1. A name for various plants. a. = mill-mountain. b. The centaury, Erythræa Centaurium (Cumberland Gloss. 1878). c. Quaking-grass, Briza media. d. The corn spurry, Spergula arvensis (Miss Jackson Shropshire Word-book, 1879). e. U.S. Polygala Senega. f. N.Z. Phormium colensoi, a smaller and hardier form of the New Zealand flax, P. tenax.
| 1718 Quincy Comp. Disp. 186 Mountain Flax.—This is own'd in Medicine only by the common People. 1788 W. Marshall Yorks. II. 119 Mountain flax—linum catharticum—purging flax. 1845–50 A. H. Lincoln Lect. Bot. App. 144/2 Polygala senega (seneca snake-root, mountainflax). 1867 E. Sauter tr. F. von Hochstetter's New Zealand vii. 152 We may distinguish about three principal varieties..Wharariki, mountain flax, with coarse fibres; little used. 1871 Scott. Naturalist I. 54 In Kirkcudbrightshire, the Quaking Grass (Briza) is called Mountain Flax. 1949 P. H. Buck Coming of Maori (1950) ii. v. 167 Relief in decoration was obtained by spacing tags of the mountain flax (Phormium colensoi) which turn a distinct yellow in colour. |
2. A kind of asbestos; = amianthus 1.
| 1807 Aikin Dict. Chem. & Min. I. 107 Amianth or Mountain Flax. 1856 A. Faulkner Dict. Comm. Terms 6. |