808 



tubes fall in showers to the ground. This continues till 

 the end of April, each tree yielding from 2 to 4 maunds 

 (two and one-half to five bushels) of flowers, but usually 

 the fall from a single tree is complete in about 7 to 10 

 days. A drying-floor is prepared in a position central to 

 a selected batch of trees. The ground is smoothed and 

 beaten; on this the flowers as collected day by day are 

 spread out to dry in the sun. In a few days they shrink 

 in size, change in color to a reddish brown, and their pe- 

 culiar sweet smell becomes more concentrated and the re- 

 semblance to that of mice more intense. But the mahua 

 that is intended for sale is not dried to the same extent 

 as that set apart for. home consumption, and naturally so 

 since the loss in weight is considerable. But mahua is 

 eaten extensively while fresh - in the dried form it is 

 cooked and eaten along with rice and other grains or food 

 materials. Before being eaten the dry corolla tubes are 

 beaten with a stick to expel the stamens; the quantity 

 required is then boiled for six hours or so and left to 

 simmer until the water has been entirely evaporated and 

 the mahua produced in a soft juicy condition. Tamarind 

 or sal (Shorea robusta) seeds and gram (chick-pea) are 

 frequently eaten along with mahua. By the better classes 

 it is fried with ghi (butter) or with mahua oil. It is 

 extremely sweet, but the power to eat and digest this form 

 of food is an acquired one, so that few Europeans are able 

 to consume more than one flower without having disagree- 

 able after effects. Sometimes the mahua is dried com- 

 pletely, reduced to a powder, and mixed with other arti- 

 cles of food.. In that condition it is often baked into 

 cakes. Sugar may also be prepared from the flowers or 

 they may be distilled and a wholesome spirit prepared, 

 the chief objection to which is its peculiar penetrating 

 smell . of mice. Nicholls estimated that in the Central 

 Provinces 1,400,000 persons use mahua as a regular article 

 of food, each person consuming one maund (one and one- 

 fourth bushel) per annum, an amount that would set free 

 about one and one-half maunds of grain or about thirty per 

 cent of the food necessities of the people in question. 

 This at the lowest estimate comes to one quarter of a mil- 

 lion pounds sterling which the trees present annually to 

 these provinces." (Watt, Commercial Products of India, 

 which see, for discussion of the spirit manufacture, and 

 the use and manufacture of oil and butter from the seeds.) 



Malus sp. (Malaceae.) 39145. Scions of apples from 

 Sophia, Bulgaria. Presented by Mr. Alaricus Delmard. 

 "These apples have been found immune from Schizoneura lanigera 

 (the wooly aphis.) Dr. Lainbreff informs me that he has 

 experimented with these in orchards infested with that 

 pest and while the other varieties all suffered, these 

 have remained immune." (Delmard.) 



