> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nicholas Bodley [mailto:nbodley@...]

> That explanation puzzled me. Would "cross-grain" straight strokes also
> cut? Or am I imagining that palm leaves (something I only rarely see)

have

> a "grain"?

Palm leaves have a fairly strong weave of fine fibres, but they very
definitely have a larger-scale grain that runs along the length of the
leaf and that looks like it could be prone to splitting. (This is based
on a brief inspection of a Lanna palm-leaf manuscript I have -- I'm not
about to start experimenting with what it would take to split it.)


Peter Constable