BASSIA 



Mah.ua 



Flowers 



Pood. 



Gum. 



Dye. 



Medicine. 



Timber. 



Flowers. 



Seasons. 



Yield. 

 Preparation. 



Method of 

 Cooking. 



Sugar prepared 

 from. 



Consumption to 

 Population. 



Prjce. 



THE MAHUA TREE 



Economic Value. It may be said that there are two great products of the 

 tree, (a) the EDIBLE FLOWERS and (fe) the OiL-yielding seeds. The Dictionary 

 should be consulted for the minor uses, and these may therefore be disposed of 

 here very briefly. A GUM or gutta (the milky sap hardened) flows from incisions 

 or abrasions on the stem (see p. 627). [Cf. *Pharmacog. 2nd., ii., 358-60 and 361 

 for its chemical properties and uses.] In some parts of the country ringing 

 of the stems is practised just on the setting of the fruits. When this is done 

 the gum may be obtained in abundance. The bark is employed as a DYE. The 

 flowers, the oil, the spirit distilled from the flowers, and the bark are all used 

 MEDICINALLY. Lastly the TIMBER has some merit, but the trees are, as a rule, 

 too valuable to allow of their being killed for this purpose. 



The Flowers. The mahua shows its leaves from February to April. 

 The cream-coloured flowers appear as great clusters (of 30 to 50) near the 

 ends of the branches, from March to April, and are soon followed by the 

 young leaves. Preparatory to the harvest of flowers the people clear 

 the ground below the trees by burning the weeds and smoothing the soil. 

 About March the flowers begin to come to maturity, and every morning 

 just after sunrise the succulent corolla-tubes fall in showers to the ground. 

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

 of flowers, but usually the fall from a single tree is complete in about 7 

 to 10 days. Mukerji (Handbook Ind. Agri., 291) says the yield of each 

 tree is from 5 to 8 maunds. A drying-floor is prepared in a position 

 central to a selected batch of trees. The ground is smoothed and beaten, 

 etc. ; 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 colour to a reddish- 

 brown, and their peculiar sweet smell becomes more concentrated and its 

 resemblance 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 con- 

 sumption, 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 

 (jili) ; 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 seeds and gram 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 disagreeable 

 after effects. Sometimes the mahua is dried completely, reduced to a 

 powder, and mixed with other articles 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 per annum an amount 

 that would set free about 1 maunds of grain or about 30 per cent, of the 

 food necessities of the people in question. This at the lowest estimate 

 comes to one quarter of a million pounds sterling which the tree presents 

 annually to these provinces. It would serve no purpose to speculate as 

 to the corresponding total supply for all India ; the above illustration 

 of one province exemplifies its extreme value. 



Mahua, in times of abundance, may be purchased at a very small figure, 

 but normally it costs about 12 annas a maund. AS 8 rule the surplus 



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