XIV, 6 King: Philippine Bast-fiber Ropes 591 
A small tree with large, oblong, irregular, pubescent leaves; 
in young plants the leaves usually palmately lobed; flower large, 
solitary ; capsules large, up to 15 centimeters long, sharply five- 
angled; seeds winged; in second-growth forests throughout the 
Philippines, 
Pterospermum diversifolium bast is pinkish cinnamon; the 
fiber strips average 3 millimeters wide and 0.54 millimeter 
thick. Rope made from it is very low in tensile strength and 
in breaking length, and because of its brittleness is not com- 
monly used by Filipinos for rope making. Wetting does not 
affect its tensile strength. All of the dry, and one of the wet, 
test specimens failed in eye-splices. The values for the ten- 
sile strength given by the wet specimens show better agree- 
ment than those yielded by the dry ones, the maximum variations 
from the means in the dry and the wet series being 14 and 8 per 
cent, respectively. 
A summary of the tests made in the Bureau of Science is 
given in Table XII. 
TABLE XII.—Physical tests of rope made from the bast of Pterospermum 
diversifolium. 
[Rope made at Langiden, Abra Province, } 
Mean diameter: 
Millimeters : 6.7 
Inches 0.26 
Mean perimeter, or girth: 
Millimeters 21 
Inches 0.83 
True mean sectional area: 
Square millimeters 28.8 
Square inches 0.044 
Ultimate tensile strength (dry): 
Mean in kilograms 75.7 
Maximum in kilograms 81.6 
Minimum in kilograms 65.3 
Mean in pounds 167 
Maximum in pounds 180 
Minimum in pounds 144 
Ultimate tensile strength (wet) : 
Mean in kilograms 75.3 
Maximum in kilograms 81.2 
Minimum in kilograms 70.3 
Mean in pounds 166 
Maximum in pounds 179 
Minimum in pounds 155 
