Chemical and Structural Analysis of Fibre and Core Tissues from Flax

Samples of flax ( Linum usitatissimum ) stems from the cultivars ‘Natasja’ and ‘Ariane’ were separated into fibre and core fractions and analysed by gas–liquid chromatographic methods, ¹³C CPMAS NMR spectrometry, histochemistry, electron microscopy and UV absorption microspectrophotometry to assist in determining the structure and composition of these cell walls in relation to quality and utilisation. Analyses from chromatography and NMR gave similar results for carbohydrate and phenolic constituents in various samples and in the lower, more mature regions of the stem. Amounts of uronic acids and xylose were lower while amounts of mannose, galactose and glucose were higher in fibre vs core fractions. Quantities of phenolic constituents were significantly higher in the core than the fibre, with groups representative of both guaiacyl and syringyl lignins; amounts of phenolic acids were low. NMR showed a low intensity signal for aromatics in fibre, and it is possible that such signals arise from compounds in the cuticle rather than the fibre. Microscopic studies indicated that aromatic constituents were present in core cell walls, cuticle of the epidermis, and cell corners and middle lamellae of some regions within the fibre tissues. The lignin in fibre appeared to be of the guaiacyl type and may be too low in concentration to be unambiguously detected by NMR. Aromatic compounds were not observed in the epidermis or parenchyma cell walls. Similar analyses of dew-retted (unscutched) samples indicated that core tissues were mostly unchanged from unretted samples. Retted fibre tissues still contained lignified cell corners and middle lamellae in some regions. The cuticle, which was associated with retted fibres, was not degraded by dew-retting fungi. Fungi removed interfibre materials in some places and at times degraded the secondary wall near the cell lumen of fibre cells. Results indicate that microspectrophotometry and histochemistry are useful to identify the location and type of aromatics in fibre cell walls.