PINE-APPLE, Ananassa sativa or Bromelia minas.
Nanat, Nannah-thi, Bum Pins, . . of PHILIPPINES.
Pandang, . • CELEnEs• Nay, SGAU.
Piin appel, • DUT., Rus. Separat, . . • SIAM.
Annus°, . . . . IT. Anasi, . . . SINGH.
. . . MALAr. Annals TAM.
Kohla chika, . MALEAL. Ananas, . . • Tn.
This is the fruit of a plant indigenous to America and the East and West Indies, and reared in hot-houses in Europe. In its wild state it is inferior to the carefully cultivated.
It is one of the most abundant fruits in the Tenas scrim provinces. Its long and rigid leaves, thorny at the edges and point, abound in fine white fibres, which are in some countries woven Into the finest fabrics, netted or twisted into lines for fishing, and into ropes possessed of considerable strength. These are said not to be injured by constant immersion in water, a property which the natives increase by tanning them. The plant is said to have been introduced into India by the Portuguese in the year 1594. Being a native of the moist forests of South America, from the level of the sea to elevations of about 1800 feet, it requires, for its successful culture as a fruit a warm and moist climate ; but, like others of the family, the species are capable of existing in a warm, dry air. The pine-apple is described as growing in great abundance in the Philippine Islands, but as producing only a small, rather dry fruit. But M. Perrotet considered it a distinct species, and named it Bromelia pima, from tho Spanish name Pigna or Pina, signifying a cone. There, this plant is valued on account of the fine hair-like fibres which are separated from out of the leaves. Of these fibres, the celebrated pine apple cloth of the Philippines, sometimes called batiste d'ananas,' and resembling the finest muslin-like fabric, is woven. This is embroidered by the nuns of the convents in Manila. The leave+, recently gathered, arc laid upon a board, and the epidermis is removed with a broad knife. Upon its removal from the upper surface of the leaf, the long and beautiful fibres are seen lying upon the lower and denser epidermis, running in a longitudinal direction ; the faseiculi of fibres are then readily detached by the hand, on being raised with the broad knife. Spinners in England
did not consider it could be substituted for flax in the manufacture of textile fabrics. A patent was, however, taken out by Mr. Zincke, for the manufacture of thread from this fibre, because, when bleached, it could be spun in the same way as flax. The process of bleaching, by destroying the adhesion between the bundles of fibres, renders it much finer, and hence enables it to be extended between the rolls in the process of spinning. The first step is to remove the fleshy or suc culent side of the leaf. A Chinese, astride on a narrow stool, extends on it, in front of him, a pine-apple leaf, one end of which is kept firm, then, with a kind of two-handled plane made of bamboo, he removes the succulent matter. Another man receives the leaves as they are planed, and with his thumb-nail loosens and gathers the fibres about the middle of the leaf, which enables him by one effort to detach the whole of them from the outer skin. The fibres are next steeped in water for sorno time, after which they are washed, in order to free them from the matter that still adheres and binds them together. They are now laid out to dry and bleach on rude frames of split bamboo. The process of steeping, washing, and exposing to the sun is repeated for some days until the fibres aro considered to be properly bleached. Almost all the islands near Sing arc more or less planted with pine-apples. leaves that are annually suffered to putrefy on the ground would supply fibre for a large manufactory of valuable pins cloth. The pineapple planters are not Malays, but Bugis, most of whom have families.--Joxr.
Ind. firchip. ii. No. viii. 1848, p. 523 ; Mason ; Boyle's Fib. Pl. p. 337 ; Journ. of Agric. Soc. of India, viii. p. 182. See Pina-Cloth.