384 
The Philippine Journal of Science 
tiliaceus; this, in very numerous forms, of which banot, bonot, 
lanot, lanutan, wanoet (Dutch spelling), lapnot, and lapnit are 
a few, is applied to even more numerous species of plants than is 
bago, but also invariably to plants producing some kind of bast 
fiber or tying material. Examples from widely different plants 
to which these names are applied are species of Annonaceae; 
representatives of Malvaceae ; various species of vines, represent- 
ing diverse families, which may either be used whole or which 
produce bast ( Bauhinia cumingiana ) ; palms having a network 
of fibers about the bast of leaf stalks ; coir ; the epidermal layers 
from the leaf sheaths of abaca ( Musa textilis) ; and finally rat- 
tans. Mr. Schneider considers that these cases seem to indicate 
the derivation of the plant names from a common property rather 
than the derivation of names of various plants from a primitive 
or original name of a single species. Is not the American bass 
wood (bast-wood!) a perfectly analogous case? 
It would seem that the argument of these authors as to the 
American origin of Hibiscus tiliaceus and its prehistoric distri- 
bution across Polynesia by the Polynesians to the Tropics of 
the Old World was based on erroneous assumptions on their 
part, from both a botanical and a philological standpoint, and 
that their deductions are not borne out by the facts in the case. 
