VEGETABLE FIBRE 
219 
lopped off, and the trunk cut into pieces of six 
feet long, a perpendicular incision being made 
in each piece ; the bark is opened and taken 
off whole, chopped, washed, and dried in the 
sun. By these means, and without any further 
process, it becomes fit for the purpose of 
clothing.' 
" MusA Textilis : Fibre of the Ma- 
nilla Heaip. — We again direct attention to 
this fibre, because of the prevailing error, re- 
peated by almost every one, that the beautiful 
kind of muslin called ' Manilla handkerchiefs ' 
and ' Manilla scarfs,' is made of ' Pine-apple 
fibre,' (by the term Pine-apple is here meant 
plants of the Bromelia family,) whereas it is 
unquestionably made of the far more delicate 
thread of a species of Banana, common in the 
Philippine Islands, and first clearly defined by 
Don Luis Nee, in the Annales de Ciencias 
Naturales, IV. 123, as JMusa textilis. The 
inner portion of the plant yields, perhaps, the 
most delicate of all vegetable fibres ; and 
beautiful samples may be seen in the Museum, 
as well as a valuable scarf made from it, pre- 
sented by Mrs. Bates." 
The additional particulars respecting this 
Musa, which follow, are from a translation of 
Don Luis Nee's account above referred to, 
published many years since in the Aiinals of 
Botany (I. 200) :— 
" Abaca is a name which the natives of the 
Philippine Islands apply both to the vegetable 
fibres of which they make their cordage, and 
the plant that yields them. This is a species 
of plantain tree, the same which is called by 
Rumphius JMusa sijhestris, and in the Malay 
language JPissanrj Utan. It is found wild on 
the Philippine and Mendanao isles, and is also 
most carefully cultivated, on account of the 
singular advantages which the inhabitants 
have learned to derive from it. Extensive 
plantations of it are to be met with on the 
island of Luzon, in the provinces of Albay, 
Laguna, and Camarines, but particularly in 
the vicinity of Mount ]\Iayong, the base of 
which is about fifteen leagues in circumference. 
The soil of this extensive tract and that in the 
neighbourhood of another considerable moun- 
tain called Isarog, is very well adapted to the 
cultivation of the Abaca, which thrives only 
in moist, shady, and fertile ground. In such 
situations thickets are formed by their trunks 
and young suckers, which last are sheltered 
from the intense heat of the sun by the beau- 
tiful and wide-spreading foliage with which 
the full-grown trees are crowned. The stems 
issue from a sort of tuber furnished with 
fibres, and grow in less than eighteen months 
to the height of seven feet, their thickness 
being that of a man's thigh. They contain a 
column of white and delicate pith, very like a 
white wax, of the thickness of a man's arm. 
and covered with several coats of fibrous 
membranes, the remains of former leaves. 
The leaves forming the crown of the tree are 
from ten to twelve in number, of which the 
outer ones spread horizontally, while those in 
the centre are divergently erect. They are 
five feet or more in length, one and a half 
brood, and supported by a stalk about a foot 
in length, which is prolonged on the under 
surface of the leaves into a thick longitudinal 
rib, with which many small ramifications com- 
municate. When this herbaceous plant (for 
such, notwithstanding its size, it really is) has 
attained its greatest state of perfection, which 
it acc[uires in less than two years, a thick 
peduncle issues from the centre of the leaves, 
covered with partial, concave, ovate, acute 
spathes, which are developed in proportion to 
the growth of the peduncle. When they have 
acquired the length of three or four feet, the 
flowers appear, from nine to fourteen in each 
spathe, and are followed by green hard fruit, 
one and a half or two inches long, disagreeable 
to the taste, and applied to no use what- 
ever. 
" When the fruit is ripe, the stem perishes, 
as in other herbaceous plants, but a progeny 
survives in the suckers, which by this time 
have made their appearance. As the old 
trunks are not proper for use, the natives 
usually cut them down when a year and a 
half old, at which age this may be done with 
advantage. The stems being cut off near the 
roots, and at the upper extremity a little 
below the leaves, are slit open longitudinally, 
in order to separate the medullary substance 
from the fibrous strata, of which the outer are 
harder and stronger, forming the fcartc/a/ft used 
in the fabrication of cordage ; the inner con- 
sists of finer fibres and yields the liqns, used 
for weaving the nipis and other more delicate 
fabrics, and the intermediate layers are con- 
verted into what is called tupoz, of which the 
gidnarras are made. 
" All these layers of fibres are saturated 
with a thickish fluid, to clear them from 
which they are cut into shreds two or three 
inches wide, and dressed like flax in a sort of 
heckle, or long piece of wood furnished with 
three narrow knives, which being held in the 
right hand, the shreds are managed with the 
left, and thus reduced to fibres, and are, by this 
process, cleared from the fluid with which they 
were impregnated. In this state they are 
dried in the sun, picked and applied to diffe- 
rent uses according to their different qualities. 
Those intended for cordage, &c. undergo no 
further process ; but the others are rendered 
more soft and pliable by beating them with a 
wooden mallet ; they are then fastened to each 
other by means of almost invisible knots, 
wound into balls, and committed to the loom. 
