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