JULY 1 TO SEPTEMBER 30, 1914. 



89 



39182 and 39183— Continued. 



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 ex- 

 tremely 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 con- 

 dition 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 (IJ bushels) per annum, an amount 

 that would set free about l| maunds of grain, or about 30 per cent of the food 

 necessities of the people in question. This, the lowest estimate, comes to one 

 quarter of a million 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.) 



39182. Madhuca indica Gmelin. 

 (Bassia latifolia Roxb.) 



Distribution. — A tree 50 feet tall found throughout central India at an 

 altitude of 1,000 to 4,000 feet. 



39183. Madhuca longifolia (L.) Coville. 

 {Bassia longifolia L.) 



Distribution. — A tree 50 feet tall found in Malabar and in Ceylon. 



39184. HoLCus sorghum L. Poaceae. Sorghum. 

 (Sorghum vulgare Pers.) 

 From the Seychelles Islands. Presented by Mr. P. Rivaly Dupont, curator, 

 Botanical Station. Received August 12, 1914. 



39185 and 39186. 



From Asmara, Eritrea, Africa. Presented by the director, Government of 

 the colony of Eritrea, Government Office, Bureau of Colonization. Re- 

 ceived August 24, 1914. 



39185. JuNiPERus PEOCERA Hochst. Pinacese. East African cedar. 



See S. P. I. Nos. 22775 and 27505 for previous introductions and 

 description. 



"A tree attaining in Eritrea from 20 to 25 meters in height and 1 

 meter in diameter, with oval, open head ; bark cracked into long narrow 

 plates, boughs cylindrical. Leaves scalelike, small, in four series, semi- 

 oval or lengthened linear in the same plant. Flowers dioecious. Fruit 

 globose ovoid or depressed globose, 5 to 7 mm. in diameter, bluish 

 black and pruinose at maturity. Wood with yellowish white sapwood. 



