105 
I enumerate E. resinifera because this has been done by several of the early 
writers, e.g., T. Thomson, on manna, and copied by others (e.g., Ebert), but I have 
never seen it on that species, and it may be that attribution of manna to E. resinifera is 
only one of the many mistakes which has clustered around that species. 
i. E. rubida Deane and Maiden. 
It was until recent years believed that E. viminalis was the only species that 
produced manna in quantity, and hence it is most usually, in books, referred to as 
' Manna Gum." But I have no hesita ion in saying that the present species yields it 
over a far larger area, and perhaps more abundantly. A good deal of manna referred 
to E. viminalis in the past belongs to E. rubida, because, until the description of the 
latter, it was usually looked upon as a form of E. viminalis. At all events, these two 
species- are the two principal Manna Gums, so far as we know at present. 
The following extracts are given, with their context, in Part XXVI of my Grit. 
Rev. genus Eucalyptus. 
It will be observed that Mudie says the manna is not produced by the puncture 
of insects. 
Following are some western New South Wales localities : 
Eucalyptus mannifem A. Cunn. This species of Eucalyptus is very generally dispersed through 
the country bordering on the downs of Bathurst, where it forms a tree of irregular growth, 30-40 feet high, 
flowering in the months of August and September, and in very dry warm weather giving out a sweet juice 
or sap, which becomes white and concrete by exposure to the atmosphere, when it drops to the ground. 
N.B. Throughout the late long and painful season of drought (in New South Wales) to the agriculturist, 
the exudation from this tree has been very considerable, so that so long as the atmosphere continued very 
dry and not charged with moisture it might be gathered from the ground beneath the tree in a quantity 
sufficient in a few minutes to fill a pint pot. The Manna, as it is called by our ultramontane settlers, thus 
produced, is frequently collected for medicinal purposes, is of a pleasant sweet taste, and not in the least 
affected by the essential oil with which every part of the plant abounds. It dissolves immediately in water, 
so that it disappears at once from beneath the trees on the falling of the slightest shower of rain. It is 
frequently taken by persons at Bathurst as a pleasant purgative, so gentle in its operation that it may 
be administered to the tenderest infant the dose for a healthy adult being from 2 to 3 tablespoonsfull. 
The timber of the tree is considered useless for the purposes of rural economy, and is in consequence only 
used as fuel. A. Cunningham. 

Like the manna of Europe, it is reported to contain a saccharine and a mucous ingredient, both 
of which are easily soluble in water, and partially so likewise in the atmosphere when moist. It obviously 
arises from a rupture in the cortical vessels of the tree, produced not by the puncture of insects, but by 
atmospheric action, as it is produced only in the dry season, and the quantity varies with the degree and 
duration of the drought. 
Towards the close of a long dry season, it is found so abundant 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. (Mudie, in Trans. Medico-Botanical Soc. of London for 1832 and 1833, 
p. 24.) 
In the lowlands here (Brucedale, Bathurst) as at Coombing (near Carcoar), the Eucalyptus mannifera', 
or Flooded Gum, grows in great profusion and to a majestic size. It sounds strange to English ears, 
a party of ladies and gentlemen strolling out in a summer's afternoon to gather manna in the wilderness ; 
yet more than once I was so employed in Australia. This substance is found in small pieces on the ground 
under the trees at certain seasons, or in hardened drops on the surface of the leaves. It is snowy white 
when fresh, but turns brown when kept like the chemist's drug so called, sweeter than the sweetest sugar, 
