Flax have been domesticated just once from the wild species "Linum bienne", called pale flax. Several other species in the genus "Linum" are similar in appearance to "L. usitatissimum", cultivated flax, including some that have similar blue flowers, and others with white, yellow, or red flowers. Some of these are perennial plants, unlike "L. usitatissimum", which is an annual plant. Cultivated flax plants grow to tall, with slender stems. The leaves are glaucous green, slender lanceolate, 20–40 mm long, and 3 mm broad. The flowers are pure pale blue, 15–25 mm in diameter, with five petals. The fruit is a round,
Flax in New Zealand twining in phormium fibre cloaks. Plaiting and weaving (raranga) the flax fibres into baskets were but only two of the great variety of uses made of flax by Māori who recognised nearly 60 varieties, and who carefully propagated their own flax nurseries and plantations throughout the land. Leaves were cut near the base of the plant using a sharp mussel shell or specially shaped rocks, more often than not greenstone (jade, or pounamu). The green fleshy substance of the leaf was stripped off, again using a mussel shell, right through to the fibre which went through several processes of washing,