SECTION XIX 

 SACCHARINE SUBSTANCES 



MANNA 

 (Manna) 



Source, &C. Manna is strictly a generic term applied to the 

 saccharine exudations from a number of different plants belonging 

 to various natural orders, but when not otherwise specified is 

 understood to mean the saccharine exudation from the stem of the 

 manna ash, Fraxinus Ornus, Linne (N.O. Oleacece), a small tree widely 

 distributed over southern Europe and cultivated especially in Sicily 

 for the production of manna. 



The trees are considered fit for yielding manna when they are about 

 ten years old. Every day a transverse or oblique incision is made 

 through the bark on one side of the stem ; the saccharine liquid that 

 exudes flows down the stem in favourable seasons and dries, but in rainy 

 weather it drops from the trunk and is caught upon cactus leaves 

 (more strictly branches), placed beneath it, yielding an inferior 

 quality. In the following year the tree is cut upon the opposite side, 

 and in the succeeding year again on the first side. The stem is then 

 exhausted, the tree is cut down, and from the stool two or more 

 shoots are allowed to grow, which in ten years are again ready for 

 tapping. In good seasons about 500 grammes of manna are obtained 

 from each stem. 



Description. The finest qualities of manna, known in commerce 

 as ' flake manna,' are in pieces about 10 or 15 cm. long and 2 or 3 cm. 

 wide, which are more or less conspicuously three-sided, one of the 

 sides (that which has been next the stem) being concave and smooth. 

 It is yellowish white in colour and very brittle, even friable, exhibiting 

 when broken an indistinctly crystalline structure. It has a slight 

 agreeable odour and a sweet taste. 



Inferior qualities of manna are of a darker, brownish yellow colour, 

 and composed of broken flakes agglutinated into a more or less sticky, 

 gummy mass. 



