Aug. 25, 1919] 



Palms of the Philippine Islands 



3027 



grooved on the upper side, rounded on the lower side 

 and beset with transverse lines of needle-like spines, 

 otherwise glaucescently green; the stipular margins soon 

 becoming dry, 1 to 2 inches wide or wider, more or 

 less spinescent on the outer side; petiole above the 

 sheath 6 inches long, deeply grooved along the upper 

 side, light green all around, smooth except the tufts 

 of spines which are scattered along the lower side and 

 toward the basal portion only; spines brown, flattened, 

 at right angles, 1 to 5 or even 7 inches long; rachis 

 smooth and green, contiguous at their bases, angularly 

 2-sided on the upper side, rounded below, pithy; leaflets 

 slightly and similarly reduced at both ends, arising from 

 the upper angular sides, divaricate, only slightly recurved, 

 similarly green on both sides, twisted at the base, flat 

 and rather straight, more numerous toward the apex, 

 smooth, rigidly chartaceous; inflorescence terminal, dark 

 brown, of 3 to 5 ascending stalks, 5 to 7 feet long; the 

 main alternating branches ascendingly curved, 1 foot 

 or more in length, branched all along from near the base 

 and all more or less equal in length; secondary branches 

 ascending, only slightly recurved, about 6 inches long, 

 terete, 1 inch thick, brown. 



Mindanao: Todaya (Mt. Apo), District of Davao, May 

 1909, number 11160. The Bagobo name is "Lumbia." 

 It was collected in small semiswam py wooded flats near 

 the Sibulan river at 2000 feet altitude. 



I have seen one of these trees harvested by the Bago- 

 bos. It was a few days job for men, women and children. 

 After the tree has been felled, its trunk was cut into 

 three to four meter lengths, and each lenth was split 

 into halves. Then the soft fibrous central mass was 

 hammered out into pulp with wooden mallets. This light 

 pulp was carried by the children to the creek where 

 it was fed into a large square sieve-like hopper made 

 of very stout rattan and firmly attached to a wooden 

 frame about two meters above ground. Quantities of water 

 was constantly thrown into the hopper and over the 

 pulp while one to three women kept tramping over the 

 watery mass untill all the flour has been washed out of 

 the fibrous mass, after which the residue was thrown 

 out. The water with the whitish flour was drained from 

 under the hopper through a series of three differently 

 sized boat shape vats horizontally placed and which were 

 made of bark slabs. The Ifirst vat retained the bulk or 

 the coarsest sago, the second the middle grade and 

 the third the finest but the least. After all the material was 



