balata

Balata revolutionized the manufacture of golf balls when golf pros realized that they could hit high shots into greens and actually spin the ball backwards.

Balata, the product of the bullet-tree -- its milk or juice, in fact -- which is a large forest tree, ranging from Jamaica and Trinidad to Venezuela and Guiana. The tree grows to a height of 120 feet, and has a large, spreading head. A tree of average size yield three pints of milk. The milk is dried in hollow wooden trays. When it is sufficiently dry it is removed from the trays in strips and hung up on lines to harden.

Entry from Everybody's Cyclopedia, 1912.

Bal"a*ta (?), n. [Sp., prob. fr. native name.]

1.

A West Indian sapotaceous tree (Bumelia retusa).

2.

The bully tree (Minusops globosa); also, its milky juice (balata gum), which when dried constitutes an elastic gum called chicle, or chicle gum.

© Webster 1913