xIV.6 King: Philippine Bast-fiber Ropes 587 
TABLE IX.—Physical tests of rope made from the bast of Commersonia 
bartramia—Continued. 
Mean weight per unit length: 
Grams per meter 93.9 
Pounds per foot 0.0632 
Average breaking length: ; 
Meters 4,070 
Feet 13,300 
Moisture (per cent) 13.62 
HELICTERES HIRSUTA Lour. 
Local names: Balibago bulbusin (Pampanga); buntot-usd, lailaiginan 
(Rizal) ; danglin aso (Visayan) ; danglin kalabau (Abra, Pangasinan, Tar- 
lac) ; kKakaab or kakaag (Union, Pangasinan) ; kakaag (Abra, Pangasinan) ; 
kol-lokol-lot ti bao (Benguet) ; kubal (Pangasinan) ; laginlaginan (Manila 
and vicinity) ; malaMansanita (Ilocos Norte, Tagalog) ; malatakon (Abra) ; 
pakin bakit (Ilocano) ; saginsaginan (Tagalog); sarungas é dadakkel (Ilo- 
cos Sur); talakaw (Negrito); talosan (Tayabas) ; tolosan (Ilocano) ; tong- 
tongking (Amburayan). 
A shrub with soft, hairy, oblong, acuminate leaves which are 
obliquely cordate at the base; cymes axillary; flowers pink or 
purplish, slender, nearly 2 centimeters long, capsule oblong, cy- 
lindric, 3 to 4 centimeters long, beaked, very shaggy; throughout 
the Philippines at low altitudes, locally very abundant. 
The fiber strips constituting this rope are light buff, harsh, 
and stiff. Some of the coarser ribbons have a decidedly woody 
appearance. The thicker ribbons are not so pliable as the thin- 
ner ones and are, moreover, marked with scars or perforations 
showing where twigs or branches grew from the stems. Each 
strand is from nine to eleven strips in thickness, the strips 
varying in width from 8 to 11 millimeters, and in thickness 
from 0.18 to 0.76 millimeter. It will be noticed that there is 
great variability in the dimensions of the strips. 
Both the tensile strength and the breaking length of this 
rope are low. Twenty-four hours’ immersion in water reduced 
the tensile strength only about 10 per cent. From field in- 
formation it appears that rope made from this bast is durable 
during the rainy season. The individual breaks in both the 
' dry and the wet series gave good agreement; the maximum 
variation from the mean tensile strength of the five dry test 
Pieces was 17 per cent, and the corresponding value for the wet 
Series was 11 per cent. All of the dry specimens failed outside 
of eye-splices, and two of the wet test pieces ruptured in eye- 
splices. 
A summary of the tests made in the Bureau of Science is 
given in Table X. 
