White widow
The 1893-1910 editions of Encyclopaedia Britannica indicate - and in 1938, Popular Mechanics estimated - that at least half of all the material that has been called linen was not made from flax, but from cannabis. Herodotus (c. 450 B.C.) describes the hempen garments made by the Thracians as equal to linen in fineness and that white widow feminized none but a very experienced person could tell whether they were of hemp or flax.” Although these facts have been almost forgotten, our forebears were well aware that hemp is softer than cotton, more water absorbent than cotton, has three times the tensile strength of cotton and is m any times more durable than cotton.