Even more pedantically, paper made from cotton and linen is paper by most definitions.
Wood pulp paper is by far the most common these days, but that's surprisingly recent (mid-19th century). Before that it was mostly cotton, linen and hemp.
You can also still buy cotton resume paper, although with how digital things are these days I’m not sure how useful it would be unless you really want that Target job.
Cellulose in wood is contained in a block of wood, not like the easily accessed strands of cellulose in cotton. It's mixed together with lignin and other components in wood. It is possible to make a weak, brittle kind of paper with straight wood pulp that's mashed and cooked and pressed. Mixing in a little sawdust to rag paper is an old practice. But properly freeing the cellulose requires both extensive mechanical shredding and chemical treatments. As far as 19th century technologies goes it's underappreciated. From what I can piece together, around 1800 in England, a labourer's daily wages would buy a few dozen sheets of paper. By 1900, they could buy literally reams and reams of the stuff.
Oh, neat! I was repeating a thing I'd heard, but is apparently misleading.
According to a few sources I've found, paper is the name for anything primarily made of tangled cellulose fibers, which can be harvested from many different plant products. The more restrictive "definition", which I had been alluding to, considers only cellulose fibers derived from wood pulp as "true" paper.
Papyrus, the ancient Egyptian writing surface, is not considered paper because the raw material is not processed to remove most non-cellulose contents. Other non-paper writing surfaces throughout history include: vellum/parchment (made from prepared animal skins), clay, animal bones, bamboo and wooden slips, silk, leaves, bark, and I'm sure dozens of others.
Wood pulp paper is by far the most common these days, but that's surprisingly recent (mid-19th century). Before that it was mostly cotton, linen and hemp.
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