Lagetta lagetto

''Lagetta lagetto'' is a species of tree native to several Caribbean islands. It is called the lacebark or gauze tree because the inner bark is structured as a fine netting that has been used for centuries to make clothing as well as utilitarian objects like rope.

Taxonomy

''Lagetta lagetto'', the lacebark (sometimes: lace-bark) or gauze tree, is native to the islands of Jamaica, Cuba, and Hispaniola (in both Haiti and the Dominican Republic). It was formerly known as ''L. lintearia''. It is best documented on Jamaica, although few specimens have been reported in recent decades, and it has not been collected at all on Cuba in recent years. It gets its genus and current species name from its alternate common name of ''lagetto'' (a corruption of the Spanish word ''latigo'', or whip) on Jamaica. It is known as ''laget à dentelle'' or ''bois dentelle'' on Haiti and ''daguilla'' or ''guanilla'' in the Dominican Republic and Cuba. It is also known in one part of western Jamaica as white bark.

''Lagetta lagetto'' is the most widespread of the three known species of the genus ''Lagetta''. The two other species of ''Lagetta'' are both native to Cuba: ''L. valenzuelana'', the Valenzuela lacebark tree, and ''L. wrightiana'', the Wright lacebark tree. Little is known about either species.

''Lagetta'' is not the only member of the family Thymelaeaceae to be used as a fiber source; others include '' Daphne'' species and ''Edgeworthia chrysantha'', both of which supply fiber for papermaking.

Description and habitat

''Lagetta lagetto'' is a small, narrow, pyramidal tree, growing between tall. It has a straight trunk with a rough outer bark. It forms part of the subcanopy of the Caribbean forest, sprouting from crevices of rocky limestone slopes. It has been recorded all along the central spine of Jamaica at altitudes of from as well as along other mountainous ridges in the west central parts of the island.

The lacebark tree has smooth, dark green, leathery, somewhat heart-shaped evergreen leaves, roughly long by 2.5 inches wide. The small, white, tubular-bell-shaped flowers are produced as racemes in a pattern of alternating flower-stalks along the branchlets. There is no calyx, but the corollas concealed within the flower. It produces a roundish, hairy drupe inside of which is a dark-brown, ovoid kernel about one-quarter inch long.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, ''L. lagetto'' was reported to be abundant and widespread in Jamaica. By the late 19th century, however, there are reports of growing scarcity attributed to overharvesting without replanting. It is now rare, probably in large part due to such overexploitation combined with more general loss of forest lands in the same period. It is not reported to have been actively cultivated, but if it ever was, there may also have been loss of specialized knowledge of its cultivation needs. In the late 19th and early 20th century, ''L. lagetto'' was often grown in botanic gardens in such countries as Great Britain, the United States, and Australia, but no known specimens are found in botanic gardens today.

Loma Daguilla, an isolated mountain near San Juan, Cuba, is named for the tree, which is known locally as ''daguilla de loma'' and has been abundant thereabouts.

Uses

The inner bark of ''Lagetta'' species—the phloem layer that carries nutrients from the leaves to the roots—consists of twenty to thirty tough, thin, dense layers of interlacing bast fibers. Whereas in most economically important fibrous plants the bast fibers are formed in straight, parallel lines, in the ''Lagetta'' species they separate and rejoin to form a fine natural net or mesh of tiny rhomboids. The lacebark tree's layers of inner bark can be carefully pulled apart to produce multiple sheets of white netting known eponymously as lacebark. Lacebark is thus unique among other tropical barkcloths in being produced without having to be beaten into shape.

Although the main steps of lacebark production are clear—detaching the entire bark from the tree, extracting the inner bark, and pulling apart the layers—the details of the process are not well documented. The naturalist Philip Gosse supplied a general account of lacebark tree harvesting from a stopover in Haiti in 1846, while contemporary accounts by Emily Brennan, Mark Nesbitt, and others rely in large part on oral accounts from the few remaining lacebark harvesters. It appears that lacebark was sourced from trees growing wild (rather than under cultivation), and though sometimes an entire tree would be felled to get at the bark, in many cases a single branch would be lopped off to preserve the tree for further harvesting. Ordinarily, lacebark's corky outer bark could be readily removed by hand. If the lacebark dried out too much during the process of extraction, it would be soaked or boiled in water to restore flexibility, a process that also softened the lacebark by removing some naturally stiffening substances. The extracted netting would be stretched out—expanding the textile to at least five times its original width—and then bleached to a bright white through sun-drying. In Jamaica, harvesting was mainly carried out by men, while production of objects from lacebark was the prerogative of women.

As a textile, lacebark is soft and may be readily dyed or stained. In 1883, the French naturalist Félix-Archimède Pouchet wrote that lacebark was "as fine as our muslin and even takes its place in the toilet of our ladies". Veils, shawls, dresses, aprons, caps, collars, frills, slippers, purses, and other clothing and accessories have been made of the fiber, mainly in the period from the late 17th to the late 19th centuries. There is evidence that it was routinely used in clothing worn by people from all ranks of society in Jamaica. The survival of a number of objects that are well over a hundred years old testifies to lacebark's durability as a material. Collections with lacebark items include Kew Gardens, the Pitt Rivers Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum (U.K.), the Field Museum (U.S.), the Museum of Vancouver (Canada), and the Institute of Jamaica

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