Crops

Flax

Citation Formats

General Reference

Agriculture and Farming Atlas. "Flax." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/crops/flax.

APA Style

Agriculture and Farming Atlas. (n.d.). Flax. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/crops/flax

BibTeX

@misc{agricultureandfarmingatlas-flax,
  author = {Agriculture and Farming Atlas},
  title = {Flax},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://agriculture.interactiveatlas.org/crops/flax},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Flax is a flowering plant grown for two distinct products: its stem fibers, spun into linen, and its seeds, pressed for linseed oil. It was domesticated in the Fertile Crescent; evidence of domesticated oilseed flax with enlarged seeds comes from Tell Ramad in Syria, and fabric fragments from Catalhoyuk in Turkey have been dated to roughly 9,000 years ago, among the earliest known woven textiles.

Facts

Scientific Name

Linum usitatissimum 1

Crop Class

Fiber 1

Domestication Region

Fertile Crescent (Tell Ramad, Syria; textile evidence at Catalhoyuk, Turkey) 1

Domesticated When (Circa)

Circa 9,000 years ago (Catalhoyuk textile fragments) 1

Sources

1. Flax (Wikipedia)

Wikimedia Foundationlead section, DomesticationView the Source

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