Austral English / A dictionary of Australasian words, phrases and usages with those aboriginal-Australian and Maori words which have become incorporated in the language, and the commoner scientific words that have had their origin in Australasia

by Edward Ellis Morris

<hw>Manna</hw>, <i>n</i>. the dried juice, of sweet taste, obtained from incisions in the bark of various trees. The Australian manna is obtained from certain Eucalypts, especially <i>E. viminalis</i>, Labill. It differs chemically from the better known product of the Manna-Ash (<i>Fraxinus ornus</i>). See <i>Lerp</i>.

1835. Ross, `Hobart Town Almanack,' p. 99:

"Several of the species yield an exudation in the spring and summer months, which coagulates and drops from the leaves to the ground in small irregular shaped snow white particles, often as large as an almond [?]. They are sweet and very pleasant to the taste, and are greedily devoured by the birds, ants, and other animals, and used to be carefully picked up and eaten by the aborigines. This is a sort of Manna."

1878. R. Brough Smyth, `The Aborigines of Victoria,' vol. i. p. 211:

"Two varieties of a substance called manna are among the natural products . . . one kind . . . being secreted by the leaves and slender twigs of the <i>E. viminalis</i> from punctures or injuries done to these parts of the tree. . . . It consists principally of a kind of grape sugar and about 5 %. of the substance called mannite. Another variety of manna is the secretion of the pupa of an insect of the <i>Psylla</i> family and obtains the name of <i>lerp</i> among the aborigines. At certain seasons of the year it is very abundant on the leaves of <i>E. dumosa</i>, or mallee scrub . . ."

1878. W. W. Spicer, `Handbook of Plants of Tasmania, p. viii:

"The Hemipters, of which the aphids, or plant-lice, are a familiar example, are furnished with stiff beaks, with which they pierce the bark and leaves of various plants for the purpose of extracting the juices. It is to the punctures of this and some other insects of the same Order, that the sweet white manna is due, which occurs in large quantities during the summer months on many of the gum-trees."

<hw>Manna-Grass</hw>. See <i>Grass</i>.

<hw>Manna-Gum</hw>. See <i>Manna</i> and <i>Gum</i>.

<hw>Manoao</hw>, <i>n</i>. Maori name for a New Zealand tree, Yellow-pine, <i>Dacrydium colensoi</i>, Hook., <i>N.O. Coniferae</i>.