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PHILIPPINE HATS. 123 
Talibon, but they are also on sale in other places, from which they are 
sometimes said to come. The mature stems are dried, and flattened by 
drawing over a knife, piece of wood, or even the fingers. For some fine 
white mats, they are put in hot water before drying; after drying, they 
are often ijed. The hats are very cheap, about 12 or 15 centavos each, 
have when new a good appearance, and seem likely to be durable. The 
color is usually distinctly green, and as it is due to phlorophyll, is certain 
to fade. Bleached, both hats and mats have much of promise, but care 
will have to be taken not to exhaust the supply of material. 
MATERIALS OF MINOR IMPORTANCE. ' 
None of the materials remaining to be mentioned have at present any 
real importance; moreover, it is highly improbable that any of these will 
ever attain commercial standing. However, this is not to be understood 
as implying that there are no other plants likely to be used in quantity, 
for there are several, at present not employed at all, which have distinct 
possibilities. For instance, the true Panama-hat plant, Carludovica 
palmata Cav, has been introduced, and is making fairly satisfactory 
growth, but the individuals are too few and too young to permit any 
statement with regard to their possibilities when grown in this climate. 
Again, the very minor part played by the CT/pcraceae, as compared with 
that in a country so near as Formosa, or as in Madagascar, is rather 
significant, although the evidence seems to be that the commoner species 
have had a trial and been rejected as inferior to others, the majority of 
which can be obtained in sufficient quantity for a greatly extended trade. 
Ticog alone has any importance in this family at present, and that in 
islands where bamboo and buri are comparatively little used. It is 
possible that some of the rarer Cyperaceae may be highly useful, but their 
qualities must first be ascertained, and the plants cultivated on a large 
scale before they can have any appreciable influence on the trade. 
Hawaiian hats are highly esteemed, and the species from which they 
are made is very abundant along almost every coast of the Philippines, 
but it seems to be very rarely used, the only very definite report obtained 
to this effect being from a small island off the southern coast of Mmdoro, 
and that from the people of another place. Negative statements are very 
numerous. 
In one town, San Miguel de Mayumo, Bulacan, the people have a 
tendency to make hats, which can hardly be described in other terms 
than as freaks, some of them pretty enough. They have even tried 
shavings of pah de China, wood, mostly pine, taken from packmg-ca^es, 
obtained in Manila or elsewhere. Anything like this is wortUess, unless 
J 
r 
as a mere curiosity. ^ 7 • 
Among the commoner vegetables in the Islands is patola, Luffa cylm- 
drica (Linn.) Roemer: it has much the appearance of an elongated 
cucumber, belongs to the same family, and is used in nearly the same 
