Word: acacias
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Imelda's greatest triumph was a barrio fiesta, modeled after a village festival, that was held on the grounds of Malacanang the night the conference ended. Beneath gold lanterns that swung gently from broad acacia trees strolled 2,000 guests. All the visiting statesmen save General Park, unrelenting in a business suit, sported elaborately embroidered barong tagalog shirts worn outside the trousers; the ladies were supplied by Imelda with butterfly-sleeved balintawak and patadyong dresses...
...Little Viet Nam." Forbes Park, in Manila's southern suburbs, is known as the "millionaires' barrio"; here curved streets wend gracefully beneath towering acacia trees, and deep-piled lawns run down to Rorschach-shaped swimming pools. Armed guards stop every car without a Forbes Park sticker, and the suburb's residents?mostly Americans and Filipinos who earn more than 5,000 pesos ($1,250) a month?have their own golf course and polo club...
...Admission. To control the crowds and compensate for his inconvenience, Morse erected an 8-ft.-high chain-link fence around the tree, hired two gatekeepers and began charging visitors 50? admission to touch the magic acacia and carry its liquid away in pop bottles. His curiosity piqued by the spreading excitement over the acacia, Tree Surgeon Grover Smith arrived from nearby Harlingen, and somehow climbed the tree without Morse's knowledge. His deflating conclusion, which was printed in the local press: insects had bored "into a little old bitty knothole and the tree just started bleeding...
...skeptical surgeon was backed up by Houston Botanist Robert Vines in a terse explanation. "Sam Morse's tree," he said, "is simply an ordinary Leucaena pulverulenta, better known as an Acacia, a Lead-tree or a Great Lead-tree. When the bark ruptures on this kind of tree, the pressure inside the tree's vessels forces its abundant supply of sap to run through the opening...
Despite such expert testimony and a sudden halting of the sap flow late last month, Rio Grande Valley residents have continued to pour into La Feria to share in the "miracle" of Morse's acacia. On Labor Day weekend alone, some 1,500 passed through the chain-link fence. Scorning science, and showing that he knows a miracle when he sees one, Morse has been making plans to surround the tree with paving stones and to erect an awning to shield waiting patrons from the hot Texas sun. Meanwhile, he is waiting patiently for his bountiful acacia...