DESCRIPTION OF SPECIES 155 
Starch in the form of a kind of sago is secured from this 
palm by a general process of extracting quite similar to that used 
with Metroxylon, Corypha, and other palms. The tree is felled 
and the interior fibrous part of the trunk cut into chips or 
small pieces, which are eventually thoroughly crushed or pul- 
verized. The crushed material is then washed in a trough, and 
the water, with the starch in suspension, drawn off into a 
settling-tank. In practice the starch is usually washed with 
several changes of water, but is eventually dried in the sun. 
If well prepared, it is rather white and comparatively pure. 
As in the case of the true sago (Metroxylon) and the buri 
(Corypha), a kind of tapioca is sometimes prepared from this 
starch, by dropping wet pellets of it on hot plates. The es- 
timated yield per tree is from 50 to 75 kilos of starch. The 
débris, after most of the starch is washed out, is sometimes 
boiled and used to feed hogs. It is claimed by Barrett * and 
Hines + that in Cavite Province, Luzon, starch is secured only 
from the male or sterile trees, and that before the tree is felled 
for starch the inflorescences are removed as they appear, for a 
period of about one year. Hines states also that the trees are 
tested as to the amount of starch present by cutting notches 
in the lower part of the trunk and examining the pithy part. 
Starch production from this palm is apparently only a local 
industry, and the product is perhaps used only when there is 
a scarcity of other food. Blanco speaks of it as miserable 
food, and wonders that the natives were content with it, adding 
that the civilized ones scarcely used it at all. 
The tree is apparently much more commonly tapped for its 
sweet sap than utilized as a source of starch. This sap is 
used for the production of sugar, a fermented drink called tuba, 
vinegar, and sometimes distilled alcohol. The method of tap- 
ping is as follows :—An inflorescence stalk is selected and beaten 
with a stick or wooden mallet for a short period each day. This 
beating sometimes extends over a period of two or three weeks, 
the object being to produce wound tissue and stimulate the flow 
of sap to the injured part. The stalk is then cut off at the 
base of the inflorescence, and the exuding sap caught in a hol- 
low joint of bamboo. A thin slice is removed from the wounded 
end of the stalk once or twice each day during the period of 

* Barrett, O. W., The sugar palm. Philippine Agricultural Review, 
Volume 7 (1914), pages 216 to 221. 
+ Hines, C. W., Sugar-palm sap. Philippine Agricultural Review, Vol- 
ume 7 (1914), pages 222 to 228. 
~ Blanco, M., Flora de Filipinas (1837), page 741. 
