681 



MANGLETIA. 



MANTIDyE. 



duced into the West Indies. The tree grows to a great size, with an 

 erect trunk, and dark-coloured cracked bark. The wood is of a 

 whitish or dull-gray colour, porous, yet pretty durable if kept dry. 

 The leaves are alternate, petioled, lanceolar, entire, often a little waved 

 at the margins, firm, smooth, shining, and having, when bruised, a 

 pleasant resinous smell. The flowers are yellow-coloured and small, 

 but produced in great numbers, on large terminal erect panicles. 

 Many perfect male flowers are often found intermixed with the her- 

 maphrodite ones. Calyx 5-leaved ; petals 5, lanceolate, twice the 

 length of the calyx, furnished in the inside with a lobed granular 

 scale or crust ; stamen, a single fertile oue, with three or four filament- 

 like bodies, which represent the abortive stamens ; ovary with its base 

 immersed in the torus, obliquely oval, 1-celled, with a single ovule 

 attached to the side of the cell ; style one, from the upper edge of the 

 ovary, curved downwards ; drupe oblong, or somewhat kidney-formed, 

 also a little compressed like a kidney, fleshy, with a smooth rind, 

 yellow or reddish when ripe, size various, but in general about as large 

 as a goose's egg ; nut conformable to the drupe, but more compressed, 

 woody, 1-celled, 2-valved, covered on the outside with many fibrous 

 filaments, particularly in the worst sorts ; the kernels are large. 

 Embryo between erect and transverse ; cotyledons thick, fleshy ; 

 radicle opposite to hilum. 



The Mango is so well known as one of the most highly esteemed 

 fruits of the East, that one is surprised to find it sometimes described 

 as like nothing so much as a mixture of tow and turpentine. The 

 is a secretion abounding iu the family to which the Mango 

 1 m:iy be secreted in larger quantities in neglected varieties, 

 where also the filaments of the nut will likewise abound. But in well- 

 cultivated varieties the fruit is sweet and rich-flavoured, juicy, and 

 nearly as free of fibres as a melon. The kernels contain much nourish- 

 ment, but are never used for food except in famines, when they are 

 cooked in the steam of water, and used as an article of diet. From 

 wounds made in the bark of the tree there issues a soft reddish- 

 brown resin, which age hardens. Burnt iu a candle, it emits a smell 

 like that of a Cashue nut when roasting. It softens in the mouth, 

 and adheres to the teeth. The taste is slightly bitter, with some 

 degree of pungency. It dissolves almost entirely iu spirits, and to 

 some degree in water. 



The tree is generally raised from seeds, which should be sown soon 

 after they are gathered, but this is a very uncertain way of getting the 

 finer varieties. Propagating by layers, and grafting by approach, are 

 the only modes of certainly continuing fine sorts, as well as of 

 improving them. These have the advantages also of bearing when 

 small in size, that is, only a few feet in height, and therefore well 

 suited to culture in the hothouses of Europe. Sweet states " that 

 the Mango ripens iu this country when the plants are of a good size. 

 Sandy loam, or a mixture of loam and peat, is most suitable to it ; 

 and the pits should be well drained, as the plants are apt to get sodden 

 with too much water. Fresh seeds from the West Indies vegetate 

 freely. The plant may also be increased from cuttings, which root 

 best in sand under a hand-glass." It would be advisable also to 

 imitate its native climate as much as possible, that is, after winter, 

 giving it dry heat with watering for some months, and then removing 

 it into an orchideous house iu the season of ripening its fruit. 



MANGLETIA, a genus of Plants belonging to the natural order 

 Maynoliaceif, one of the species of which, M. glauca, has a white solid 

 wood, which is largely employed in Java, and supposed to prevent the 

 decay of corpses put into coffins made of it. 



MANGO-GINGER. [CORCUMA.] 



MANUO-TKKK. [MAXUIFEBA.] 



MANGOSTEEN. [CLUSIACE^; GARCINIA.] 



MANGOUSTE. [HEIU-KSTES.] 



MANGROVE. [KHIZOPIIORA.] 



MANIHOT. [JATBOPHA.] 



MANIOC. [CASSAVA.] 



MA SIS. [KlTNTATA.] 



MANNA. The concrete juice of the Ornut Europams, a species 

 of Ash, native of the south of Europe. Other sweetish secretions 

 exuded by some other plants are usually considered to be kinds of 

 Manna. These appear to be all produced in warm and dry parts of 

 the world. The kind which is most abundant is by the Arabs called 

 Toorunjbeen, which is often translated ' Persian Manna,' and is 

 produced by a thorny plant, called by botanists Alhagi Maitrorum. 

 The genus Alttayi (a name compounded of 'haj ' and the article ( al') 

 of botanists contains two species, A. Mcturorum and A. desertorum, 

 found in India, Egypt, Arabia, the north of Persia, and Syria. Both 

 species are alto called Ooshturkhar, or Camel's Thorn. A. Maurorum 

 is alone remarkable for yielding a kind of Manna, which by some 

 authors has been supposed to be the Manna of the Wilderness ; hence 

 the plant itself was culled Manna Ilebraica by Mr. Don. The climate 

 of Persia and Bokhara seems alone suited for the secretion of this 

 Manna, which in the latter country is employed as a substitute for 

 sugar, and 'a imported into India from Cabul and Khorassan. A 

 econd kind, which, though less abundant, is more esteemed than the 

 former, is called Sheer Kliisht, and is mentioned by Garcias under this 

 name, and described as produced in the country of the Uzbecs. A 

 1 merchant reported to Dr. Royle that it was produced by a tree 

 mil. t] Ound'-l-li, which was about 12 feet high, had a jointed stem, 



and grew in Candahar. A third kind of Manna is called Guzunjbeen, 

 the produce of a species of Tamarisk, called Guz, which is considered 

 by Ehreuberg to be only a variety of Tamariscus gallica, growing on 

 Mount Sinai, but which has been called T. mannifera, : by some 

 authors this is supposed to be the Manna of the Wilderness. It is 

 said to be produced also in Laristan and in Irak Ajemi. A fourth 

 kind of Manna is produced on Calotropis procera, called Ashur, and 

 its sweet exudation or sugar Shukur-al-Ashur, under which name it is 

 described by Avicenua ; Zuccarum-al-Husar in the Latin translation, 

 ch. 758. A fifth kind, called Bed-Khisht, is described iu Persian 

 works as being produced on a species of willow in Persian Khorassau. 

 Besides these comparatively little known kinds of Manna, a sweetish 

 exudation is produced on the Larch (Larix Europwa), which forms the 

 Manna Briyantiaca, or Brianjon Manna of some Pharmacopoeias. 

 [ORNUS ; ALHAGI ; TAMAKISCUS ; LARIX.] 



MANNA-ASH. [FHAXINUS.] 



MANON, a genus of Zoopkyta, proposed by Schweigger, adopted 

 by Goldfuss, and ranked by De Blainville among the Amorphozoa, with 

 Spongia, Alcyonium, &c. It is an attached mass, full of lacuna?, 

 composed of reticulated fibres, with its surface pierced by many 

 distinct holes. Goldfuss gives niue species, of which five are from 

 the Chalk, two iu Jura Kalk, and one in Transition Rocks. 



MANTELLIA (in memory of the late Dr. Mautell, the geologist), a 

 generic name proposed by Parkinson for certain Alcyoniform Fossils 

 of the Chalk. M. Brongniart has also established the use of this 

 word for certain Cycadiform Plants, to which Dr. Bucklaud has 

 applied the title of t'ycadeoidea. The specimens are chiefly found iu 

 the Oolite of the Isle of Portland, but one (M. cylindrica) occurs iu 

 the Lias of Luneville, according to M. Voltz. The stem of these 

 plants is cylindrical or spheroidal, and covered with transverse 

 impressions of leaf-bases. The internal structure resembles Cycas. 

 (Buckland, in 'Geological Transactions,' 1828.) 



The following is an account of the locality in the Isle of Portland in 

 which these fossils occur : "Immediately upon the uppermost bed of 

 limestone, which is a coarse rock, full of cavities and imprints left by the 

 decay of the usual species of marine, univalve, and bivalve shells of the 

 oolite, are layers of calcareous shell a few feet in thickness, in which 

 no vestiges of marine fossils have been observed ; and whose laminated 

 structure and the presence of horizontal seams of carbonaceous earthy 

 matter, with interspersions of vegetable remains, indicate a fluviatile 

 or freshwater origin. 



" Upon these deposits is a layer, from one to two feet thick, of a 

 dark-brown friable loam abounding in lignite, and so similar in appear- 

 ance to common vegetable earth or mould, as to have acquired the 

 name of dirt-bed from the quarrymen. In and upon this bed are, 

 numerous petrified stems and branches of coniferous trees and plants 

 allied to the Zamia. Many of the trees and plants are standing 

 erect, as if petrified while growing on the spot ; the trunks of the 

 trees extending upwards into the limestone above, and vestiges of the 

 roots being traceable into the dirt-bed. The upright stems are in 

 general a few feet apart, and but 3 or 4 feet in diameter ; portions of 

 prostrate trunks have been collected, indicating a total height of the 

 originals of 30 or 40 feet. In many instances fragments of branches 

 remain attached to the stem. The cycadeous plants occur in the 

 intervals between the upright trees, and the dirt-bed is so little 

 consolidated, that specimens evidently standing in the position in 

 which they originally grew, may be dug up with a spade. 



" The strata above the dirt-bed consists of finely laminated cr^am- 

 coloured shaly limestone, in which casts of the freshwater crustaceans 

 (Cyprides) so abundant in the Wealden, are the only organic remains 

 hitherto noticed. These deposits are covered by the modern vegetable 

 soil, which but little exceeds in depth the ancient oue above described, 

 and instead of supporting Cycadece and pine forests, barely maintains 

 a scanty vegetation. Here then we have the remains of a petrified 

 forest of the ancient world, the trees and plants like the inhabitants 

 of the city in Arabian fable turned into stone, yet still retaining the 

 places they occupied when alive." 



Specimens of Mantellia nidiformii and M. cylindrica from the Isle 

 of Portland, are to be seen in the British Museum. 



MA'NTID^H, a family of Orthopterous Insects, the species of which 

 may be distinguished by the following characters : Head exposed 

 (not hidden by the thorax), furnished with three ocelli, or simple 

 eyes, besides the ordinary pair of compound eyes; palpi short, slender, 

 and cylindrical ; antenuie generally setaceous, but sometimes pecti- 

 nated ; short in the females and long in the males ; body elongated ; 

 the thorax usually very long, often dilated at the sides and dentate; 

 abdomen long, and with the terminal segment small in the male sex, 

 more or less dilated, and with this terminal segment large in the 

 females ; the apex furnished with two small appendages ^ legs long ; 

 the four posterior legs slender, the anterior legs with the coxae very 

 large and elongated ; the femora also very large, dilated, and furnished 

 with a double series of spines on the under side, between which (when 

 the animal is in a state of repose) the tibise are placed: the tibiic 

 are rather short, armed with spines, and having a strong spine at the 

 apex, which is recurved ; tarsi usually 5-jointed, but in some species 

 the posterior tarsi have only three joints ; wings horizontally folded 

 when at rest. 



Thn principal genera contained in this family Rre-.ffeteromylarsns 



