sturtevant's notes on edible plants 283 



F. omus Linn, manna ash. 



Alediterranean region and the Orient. The manna ash is indigenous and is cultivated 

 in Sicily and Calabria. When the trees are eight or ten years old, one cut is made every day 

 from the commencement of July to the end of September, from which a whitish, glutinous 

 liquor exudes spontaneously and hardens into manna. Manna is collected during nine 

 years, when the tree is exhausted and is cut down and only a shoot left, which after four 

 or five years becomes in turn productive. Once a week the manna is collected. The 

 yield is abcJht 5 poimds of select and 70 pounds of assorted manna per acre. This tree 

 is the melia of Dioscorides, the meleos of modem Greece.' The seeds are imported into 

 Egypt for culinary and medicinal use and are called bird tongues.^ Fraxinus etccelsior 

 Linn, furnishes a little manna in some districts of Sicily .' 



The manna of Scripture is supposed to be a Lichen, Parmelia esculenta, a native of 

 Asia Minor, the Sahara and Persia. Some believe manna to be the exudation found on 

 the stems of Alhagi maurorum Medic, a shrubby plant which covers immense plains in 

 Arabia and Palestine and which now furnishes a manna used in India. In Kvmiaun, 

 as Madden * states, the leaves and branches of Pinus excelsa Wall., become covered with 

 a liquid exudation which hardens into a kind of manna, sweet, not turpentiny, which 

 is eaten. Tamarisk manna is collected in India from the twigs of Tamarix articulata 

 Ehr. and T. gallica Ehr., and is used to adulterate sugar as well as for a food by the Bedouin 

 Arabs. Pyrus glabra Boiss., affords in Lviristan a substance which, according to Hauss- 

 knecht, is collected and is extremely like oak manna. The same traveller states that 

 Salix fragilis Linn., and Scrophularia frigida Boiss., likewise yield in Persia saccharine 

 exudations. A kind of manna was anciently collected from Cedrus libani Linn. Australian 

 manna is found on the leaves of Eucalyptus viminalis Labill., E. mannifera Mudie and 



E. dumosa A. Cimn. ; that from the second species is used as food by the natives. This 

 latter manna is said to be an insect secretion and is called lerp. In Styria, Larix europaea 

 DC, exudes a honeyed juice which hardens and is called manna. In Asiatic Turkey, 

 diarbekir manna is foimd on the leaves of dwarf oaks. Pinus lambertiana Dougl., of 

 southern Oregon, yields a sort of exudation used by the natives, which resembles manna. 



Freycinetia banksii A. Cimn. Pandaneae. 



New Zealand. The flowers, of a sweetish taste, are eagerly eaten by the natives 

 of New Zealand.* This plant is said by Curl to bear the best edible fruit of the country.** 



F. milnei Seem. 



Fiji Islands. According to MiJne,' the fruit is eaten by the Fijians. 



Fritillaria camschatcensis Ker-Gawl. Liliaceae. Kamchatka lily. 



Eastern Asia. The bitter tubers, says Hooker, are copiously eaten by the Indians 



Pickering, C. Chron. Hist. Pis. 169. 1879. (Omus europaea) 

 ' Ibid. 



' Fluckiger and Hanbury Pharm. 366. 1874. 



* Madden, E. Obs. Himal. Coniferae. 1850. 

 ' Hooker, W. J. Journ. Bot. 4:306. 1842. 

 Curl, W. Bot. Index 107. 1880. 

 'Seemann, B. Fl. Viti. 283. 1865-73. 



