37. Observations on the Bat-Flowers of the Mohwa 
(Bassia latifolia). 
By Maupe L. Crrauorn, F.LS., F.Z8.. 2.58, 
As recent books on Indian Botany have not touched on 
the rather unique floral mechanism of the Mohwa these notes 
and sketches made in March and April 1914, have been put 
t 
observations because the bats appeared to be doing a great 
deal of damage ; for instead of eating the fruit only, which is 
usually the case, they were devouring flowers instead. 
The Mohwa tree is leafless when it starts coming into 
flower and the flowers have a strong unpleasant odour resembl- 
ing that of bats. (It was not determined at the time whether 
are about two to three inches long are borne in dense clusters, 
near the ends of the rather horizontally placed twigs, just 
below the tuft of young leaves. The flower and pedicel are 
tawny and tomentose. The corollas of the older flowers are 
eream-coloured and fleshy. 
calyx consists of four coriaceous tawny-coloured 
sepals about half an inch long. The corolla in the first stage 
of flowering is not fleshy and remains almost completely 
covered by the sepals with just the six or eight pointed lobes 
of the corolla only protruding and closely twisted round the 
stvle (Fig. 8). It does not open like the corollas of other flowers. 
In the second stage the corolla is fleshy and enlarged to more 
than twice its previous size and it still remains closed. There 
are about twenty-four stamens arranged in three series within 
the corolla tube, The anthers are subsessile, lanceolate and 
