602 Philippine Journal of Science 1919 
Unlike most of the bast tested in the form of rope, Malachra 
fasciata bast has more of a filamentous than a ribbon character 
due to the fact that the fiber is prepared by retting. The entire 
bush is cut and then steeped in fresh water for about ten days, 
at the end of which time the bast is easily stripped and washed 
free of the larger portion of nonfibrous material. Plate III, 
fig. 13, illustrates the filamentous nature of this bast; bundles 
instead of strips would be the more correct designation of the 
fiber elements constituting the strands. These bundles of fila- 
ments vary from fine hairlike fibrils with elliptical cross section 
to coarse polygonal bundles calipering about 0.76 millimeter in 
thickness. A few'of the bundles are ribbon-shaped but narrow, 
and in no case exceed 2 millimeters in width. They have an 
average thickness of 0.46 millimeter. The strands are, roughly, 
ten bast bundles thick. Malachra fasciata bast is olive buff; 
owing to its nonstaining property, rope made from it is said 
to be used for hanging clothes in addition to serving as a general 
utility rope. 
The dry rope has an excellent tensile strength and breaking 
length. Wetting decreases the mean tensile strength 15 per 
cent and also causes the specimens to break more uniformly. 
The maximum variation from the mean tensile strength in the 
five wetted specimens was only 6 per cent, whereas the maximum 
difference from the average value in the dry ones was 20 per 
cent. One of the wet, and two of the dry, test pieces were 
ruptured in eye-splices. 
A summary of the tests of this species made in the Bureau 
of Science is given in Table XIX. 
TABLE XIX.—Physical tests of rope made from the bast of Malachra fasciata. 
[Rope made at Dolores, Abra Province.] 
Mean diameter: 
Millimeters 5.4 
Inches 0.21 
Mean perimeter, or girth: : 
Millimeters 17 
Inches 0.67 
True mean sectional area: 
Square millimeters 21.2 
Square inches 0.033 
Ultimate tensile strength (dry) : 
Mean in kilograms 135 
Maximum in kilograms 152 
Minimum in kilograms 108 
Mean in pounds 298 
Maximum in pounds 335 
Minimum in pounds : 239 
