Fagara silk
Fagaraseide is the natural silk from the cocoons of throughout East Asia occurring Atlas moth ( Attacus atlas ), of the family of saturniidae belongs. The cocoon is about 8 × 3 cm in size and (unlike that of the mulberry moth ) does not consist of one long, but many short threads. The silk is mainly processed in the Schappes spinning mill .
The term comes from a species of tree Fagara ( Zanthoxylum ), whose Arabic name is faghira فَاغِرَة .
origin
The Atlas silk moth, a butterfly from the peacock moth family and the largest species of butterfly in the world, is found only in Southeast Asia, southern China and India. Here he lives in subtropical and tropical forests. Since the Fagara silk is natural silk, the moths are not bred, but their cocoons are collected in the wild. Silk-producing countries are therefore only those states in which the Atlas silk moth occurs in the wild.
Extraction
Since the cocoon of the Atlas moth consists of short fibers, the fagara silk cannot be obtained using the reel process, in which a long thread is unwound from the cocoon in one go. Instead, the Schappe method is used: After the base material has been cleaned, the fibers are combed out and combined into parallel fiber strands.
Economical meaning
The cocoons of the Atlas silk moth are brownish in color. The fagara silk obtained on it retains this color, in contrast to the silk of the mulberry moth, which has a pure white color. In addition, Fagara silk is slightly thicker than the natural silk of other species of silk moth. Due to the natural brown color, the fabric is more difficult to dye than other types of silk. The economic importance of the fagara silk is therefore rather low. In addition, extraction is very complex and provides comparatively little yield.
swell
- ↑ The Atlas Silkworm. M. Wagner, HG Jarzombek: Butterflies around Wildau and Berlin.