Note 21 — Mat Materials.

The best known tikug mats are produced on the Island of Samar, where the sedge grows wild.21 It has never been cultivated there. Different grades are recognized in the height and width of the straw. The finest is 1½ mm. in diameter while the largest straws are fully four times that width. Full grown stalks sometimes reach 3 meters in height, but the average is 1½ meters. In most places in Samar only very coarse tikug is found and this is especially true in the northern half of the island. The best material grows near the towns of Basey and Sulat, a circumstance probably due to the fact that most of these sedges are pulled up for weaving before they become old and coarse, for it is in these two towns that the mat industry of Samar is centered. All grades of tikug can be used in making mats; but as the straw cannot be split into finer pieces, it is only from the narrower material that the fine mats are made. The map on the distribution of tikug shows the regions in Samar in which this sedge occurs.22