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the mesh work of roots Is still obvious, or is indicated by the 

 irregularity of surface. On the older ones it is smoothed out 

 completely by successive years of growth, and the mature balete 

 becomes a tall, straight, smooth-barked tree, six to eight feet 

 in diameter, with its branches and foliage lost to view in the 

 forest canopy above, and with no trace whatever of its earlier 

 epiphytic history. Of course they are hollow, and on one cut 

 balete the decaying mass of the host tree was very evident, 



Baletes exist in the Makiling forest by the thousands. With- 

 out walking from the trail, one can see them in every stage of 



Fig. 4. A felled balete showing four principal roots and a central cavity filled 

 by the decayed remains of the host tree. 



existence, from the small epiphytes on the host tree to the giant 

 mature tree. No two of them look exactly alike in their in- 

 termediate stages, because their descending roots differ in size, 

 in number, and in the amount of anastomosing, and the botanist 

 will not tire of examining all of them that he sees. 



The mature baletes, and many other species of the tropical 

 forest, show in a very interesting way the development of huge 

 buttress roots of the plank buttress type. These may be four- 

 teen feet long, eight feet high at the base, flat, vertical, and 

 straight, and even at the base scarcely exceeding a foot in thick- 

 ness. They stand out from the main trunk, at all angles and in 



