a 
Australian Plants. 25 
dant on the ground under the trees, that several pounds may 
be collected by one person in a few minutes; but when rain 
begins to fall, it melts, and disappears almost as rapidly as 
snow. 
It is worthy of remark, that this substance, manna, which 
is reported as being so similar, as afforded by the Ash of 
Europe and the Eucalyptus of Australia, and which has not 
been found, possessing the same qualities, upon any other 
species of plant, should yet appear to be an exudation of 
two genera which differ so much in every other respect, and 
are indigenous only in countries which are distant from each 
other by nearly half the circumference of the globe; and it 
deserves further notice, as being one of the few instances of 
near coincidence in a substance where most of the produc- 
tions of nature are so dissimilar. 
