Same idea as the Chicle' trees in Central America that are tapped for the 'rubber' that is used in chewing gum; think Chiclets.... We used to find trees with the telltale V pattern cuts from the cutters in the jungle and recut one once and chewed the resultant sap - you couldn't wear it out. I'd post pics but they're Kodachrome slides. The guys who collected the gum were/are called Chicleros and are folk heroes. They go out alone into the jungle with a pack animal for weeks, collect the sap, dry it a bit and make a ball of it a few feet in diameter and bring it out of the jungle to sell for a lot of money.... all so folks can look cool chewing gum. Go figure.
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