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 rdbusta) 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. Lambreff 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.) 
