The Philippine Journal of Science, C. Botany. 
Vol. VI, No. 2, June, 1911. 
PHILIPPINE HATS . 1 
By C. B. Robinson. 
(From the Botanical Section of the Biological Laboratory, Bureau of Science, 
Manila, P. I.) 
INTRODUCTION. 
Hats have been made in the Philippines since before the coming of 
Europeans, and have been a regular article of export for at least seventy 
years, the annual number sent from the Islands now averaging over half 
a million, the total annual output probably exceeding two million. 
They may roughly be divided into three classes, soft hats of the general 
style of the Panamas, straw hats with flat brims and crowns made from 
imported materials, or of similar shape but of native materials, and hard 
hats more often circular in outline but of various shapes. Of these, the 
first class is commercially the most important, and is the one chiefly 
dealt with in this paper ; the second is a comparatively recent development, 
but supplies a large part of the local trade; the third is prehistoric in 
origin, useful, but at least gradually disappearing, and of greater ethno- 
logic than commercial interest. 
Many materials are used, especially for the last class, but the great 
majority of hats of the first class are made from two species of plants, 
the buri palm ( Gorypha data Roxb.), and the spiny bamboo ( Bambusa 
blumeana Schult. f.). A species of pandan, usually assumed to be 
Pandanus sabotan Blanco, and a rattan ( Calamus mollis Blanco), furnish 
materials in many ways of even greater excellence, but the output is much 
smaller. Species of Lygodium, climbing ferns, known locally as nito, 
formerly ranked among the chief materials but are now less used. Two 
other materials, Pandanus utilissimus Elmer, and a sedge, Fimbristylis 
utilis Elmer, are of local importance, but for cheap hats only. 
1 After the original text of this manuscript had been completed, a paper on 
the same subject was published by Mr. Hugo H. Miller, as Bulletin 33 of the 
Bureau of Education. As many aspects of the subject are very fully and ac- 
curately treated by him, the present paper has been rewritten with the excision 
of a large quantity of matter to avoid duplication : such data herein as are due 
to that publication being credited in footnotes. 
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