10G 
and softer than Gunter's [Gunter was a famous London pastrycook. J.H.M.] softest ice-cream. The 
manna is seldom plentiful, for birds, beasts, and human beings devour it, and the slightest rain, or even 
dew, dissolves it delicate components. Theories have been hazarded and essays published as to the origin 
of this singular substance ; but whether it be formed by the puncture and deposit of an insect, or is the 
natural product of the tree, no one, I believe, can venture to assert. Nor was there wanting hereabouts 
another special article of the heaven-sent food of the wandering tribes of Israel ; for hundreds of quails 
were to be found within a few paces of the manna-fields. (Mundy's " Our Antipodes," vol. i, 2nd ed., 
pp. 351-2, or 3rd edn. p. 176.) 
Following are southern localities : 
E. rubida in some years yields an enormous quantity of manna in the Monaro 
district. I supplied Dr. F. W. Passmore with a quantity of this manna under the 
name of E. Gunnii var., and he prepared an exhaustive paper upon it which was 
published in Pharm. Journ. (3), xxi, 717, under the title of "The carbohydrates of 
manna from E. Gunnii Hook., and of Eucalyptus Honey." It came from Wollandibby, 
near Jindabyne, Snowy River. It is the same as that collected by Mrs. (afterwards 
Lady John) Hay, at Wylorewang (?Welaregong) on the Upper Murray, and contributed 
by her to the Paris Exhibition, 1855. The catalogue says : " This is a specimen of 
the most common kind of Australian manna. It is found in considerable quantities in 
many tracts, generally rather upland, scattered under the trees from which it exudes. 
The tree has a white bark streaked with red, which shells off annually. The manna 
falls in March and April. The trees are called by the blacks Bak-Bak." 
Mrs. Hay's was the identical specimen of manna, I believe, examined by the 
celebrated M. Berthelot ; see p. 117. 
I received some of the same manna from Mr. A. M. N. Rose, from " The Manna 
Gum," of Dalgety, Snowy River, southern New South Wales. He said: " I saw manna 
white as snow, splashed about like molten lead; the Manna Gum produces manna 
annually, and not each ten years as E. Stuartiana." 
I sent a little manna of this species to Herr Alfred Ebert, of Zurich, from the 
Cooma district in 1906, under the name of E. Gunnii var., as I had to Dr. Passmore 
many years previously. 
The following is the var. (b) of E. viminalis, according to Howitt, but which in 
Grit. Rev. xxvi, p. 114, I have shown to be S. rubida. The localities are Gippsland, 
Victoria, at no great distance from the Upper Murray and Snowy Rivers. 
This tree is. the manna-producing Eucalypt of the mountain country. The manna is produced 
as plentifully, in the same manner and of the same kind, as that produced by the typical E. viminalis. 
When travelling through the Morwell district, where this tree forms part of the forest, some school children, 
whom I requested to point out the " manna gum," indicated this tree, saying that in December the ground 
under the tree was white with manna. 
I must note, in this connection, however, that I have found small quantities of manna indistinguish- 
able from that of E. viminalis, either by appearance or taste, attached to slight injuries of the leaves of 
saplings of E. Stuartiana at Toongabbie. (Howitt in Trans. Roy. Soc. Viet., ii, 99, 1890.) 
L E. Stuartiana F.v.M. ' I have found small quantities of manna, indistin- 
guishable from that of E. viminalis, either by appearance or taste, attached to slight 
injuries on leaves of saplings of E. Stuartiana at Toongabbie, Victoria." (Howitt in 
Trans. Roy. Soc. Viet., ii, 100 (1890) ). 
