XIV, 6 King: Philippine Bast-fiber Ropes 589 
or tan-ag (Bicol, Visayan, Ilocano, and Tagalog) ; tanak (Tayabas) ; urm- 
pong (Balabac) ; unopong (Moro). 
A small or medium-sized tree with large, cordate, broadly 
ovate leaves, and ample terminal panicles of small pink flowers ; 
capsules inflated, thin-walled, about 2 centimeters long, obovoid ; 
throughout the Philippines at low altitudes; usually abundant. 
According to Mendiola -- Kleinhovia hospita can be made to 
produce at least two crops a year of shoots about 1 meter long. 
It is grown from seed, and all attempts to propagate it from 
cuttings have failed. The tree is found in Malacca, Singapore, 
Ceylon, Java, and tropical East Africa. It is grown as an 
avenue tree in India, especially in Calcutta. 
In appearance and general structure the bast strips of Klein- 
hovia hospita are much like those of Sterculia crassiramea; the 
sample of rope made from the former also has the frayed and 
irregular characteristics of rope made from the latter. The 
strands average nine strips of bast in thickness, and the strips 
average 5 millimeters in width and vary from 0.43 millimeter 
to 1.75 millimeters in thickness. 
The sample of rope when dry is low in tensile strength and 
in breaking length. Unlike some related species, the wetted 
fiber shows relatively little decrease in tensile strength; immer- 
sion in water for twenty-four hours reduced the mean tensile 
strength only 7 per cent. However, the maximum result in 
the two series was in that of a wet specimen. The Filipinos 
state that cordage made of this fiber is durable during rainy 
weather. 
All ruptures of the dry specimens occurred outside, whereas 
two out of the five wet test pieces broke inside of eye-splices. 
The minimum as well as the maximum values in the wet series 
v/ere obtained from test specimens that failed outside of eye- 
splices. The maximum variations from the mean tensile 
strength in the dry and the wet series were 17 and 30 per cent, 
respectively. 
Like most of the ropes tested, this one is principally used for 
tethering carabaos and horses and for making halters. The 
individual ribbons of Kleinhovia hospita bast, after being torn 
into fine strips, are used as binder twine for tying rice stalks. 
A summary of the tests made in the Bureau of Science is 
given in Table XI. 
Philip. Agr. and Forester 6 (1917). 
