November 30,1872.] THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
421 
ON CALABRIAN MANNA. 
•BY DANIEL HANBURY, F.R.S., F.L.S., E.C.S. 
Bead before a meeting of the British Pharmaceutical 
Conference at Brighton, August 14 th, 1872. 
Manna, it is stated in tlie British Pharmacopoeia 
(1807), is a concrete saccharine exudation from the 
stem of Fraxinus Omits, L., and F. rotundifolia, 
DC., which trees are cultivated for the purpose of 
yielding it chiefly in Calabria and Sicily. Of the 
method of collecting manna in Sicily there are 
tolerably exact accounts ; and the manna plantations 
of that island have also been fully described.* 
Having never heard of manna plantations in 
Calabria, nor seen any modern account of manna¬ 
gathering in that region, I wrote in 1868 to my 
friend Colonel Yule of Palermo to inquire if he 
could furnish me with any particulars. Colonel 
Yule being unable to answer my questions, commu¬ 
nicated them to Mr. Grant, British Consul at 
Brindisi, who in his turn sought to obtain the 
desired information from some of the British Vice- 
Consuls (Italians) in Calabria. But except the 
statement that the site of its production was the 
province of Calabria Citra, and especially the terri¬ 
tory of Rossano on the shores of the Gulf of Taranto, 
I was unable to gain any very precise knowledge on 
the subject. 
Here I may remind you of an investigation into 
the history of manna which I made in 1869,f and 
that one conclusion to which it led was this,—that 
manna was collected in Calabria for hundreds of 
years prior to its being a commercial product of 
Sicily, and that the earliest accounts of manna- 
gatliering in the latter, only date from the second 
half of the 17 th century. 
It will be well now to consider some remarks 
that have been made by travellers regarding manna 
as an object of industry in Calabria: though they 
are only passing allusions, they suffice to show that 
this drug was at least a well-recognised production 
of the country in question. 
Baron Riedesel, a German nobleman who made 
an interesting journey through Sicily and Southern 
Italy about a century ago, and whose travels have 
been published botli in German and English,J 
travelled from Cotrone to Cariati, small towns on 
the eastern coast of Calabria. Of the latter he re¬ 
marks that “it is a bishopric of Calabria, * * 
“ round which they collect the best manna and 
“ in the greatest quantity. The owners of the 
“ manna-trees are obliged to sell their manna to the 
“ king for a fixed price : the better sort, or what is 
“ commonly called in cannole, for 2 carlini [8rf.], and 
“ the worse, or in frasca, for 8 grant [3|c?.] the 
“pound. These revenues are farmed for 32,000 
“ ducats [,£5533] per annum. The greatest quan- 
“ tity is collected about Cariati and Strongoli.” 
About 20 miles west of Cariati is the small town 
of Corigliano, where, says the Baron, they also collect 
“ vast quantities of manna.” 
Half a century after tliis traveller, an English - 
* See in particular a paper by Dr. Cleghorn on the Botany 
and Agriculture of Malta and Sicily— Transactions of the 
Botanical Society of Edinburgh, vol. x. 1868-69. 
+ Pharm. Journ., XI. (1870) 326. 
X Travels through Sicily and that part of Italy formerly 
called Magna Grcecia, translated from the German by 
J. R. Forster, F.R.S., London, 1773. 
Third Series, No. 127. 
man, the Hon. Richard Keppel Craven, made a 
journey through Calabria, visiting among other 
places Cariati, the vicinity of which was at that 
period still famous for manna. The following is 
from his published journal* :—“ The mountains near 
“ Cariati abound with game, and the forests which 
“richly clothe their summits furnish quantities of 
“ that species of ash which produces the manna, a 
“ considerable branch of commerce in this province, 
“ and more particularly esteemed from this district.” 
The foregoing notices, scanty as they are, are yet 
of interest as coming from eye-witnesses, or at least 
from inquiries on the spot. Let me now add a few 
observations of my own, the result of a short journey 
during the present year through a portion of the 
province of Calabria Citra. 
First, when at Florence I inquired for Calabrian 
Manna, addressing myself to the principal firm of 
wholesale druggists in that city : — the answer I 
got was that Calabrian manna was an article 
they never purchased, but that if I wished to see 
the drug it was possible, as it so happened that a 
small keg of it had been sent to them for disposal. 
Ot tliis offer I availed myself: I found to my sur¬ 
prise that the drug was a soft viscid mass containing 
small tears, mixed with fragments of leaves, sticks, 
and dirt,—in fact I regarded it of such very bad 
quality that I declined a sample which was kindly 
offered me. I thought also that if I travelled into 
Calabria I should easily obtain much better, as well 
as all desired particulars respecting the trade in 
manna, of which, according to the latest edition 
(1868) of Murray’s Handbook for Southern Italy, 
Calabria Citra is the “ principal seat.” I accord¬ 
ingly proceeded southward. 
Around Florence I may remark, and especially 
between that city and Pisa, the manna ash (Fraxinus 
Ornus, L.) is frequent, being one of the small low 
trees grown as a support for the vine. Except these 
examples I hardly saw the tree until I reached the 
shores of the Gulf of Taranto, when I observed 
some very tall specimens in the strip of humid 
forest a little south of Policoro. 
Journeying onward I arrived at Rossano, a town 
in Calabria Citra, of about 10,000 inhabitants, situ¬ 
ated 3 or 4 miles from the sea. Here I learnt that 
the manna trees, which are called Ornelli, grow on 
some of the adjacent mountains,—that they are of 
large size, and are not cultivated,—that manna is 
obtained from them by incisions in the trunk made 
by the peasants in July and August,—that the manna 
got is mostly of the soft or fatty land, very little of 
it being obtained hi long white pieces or cannoli, and 
in some seasons none at all. 
The collecting of manna about Rossano is at pre¬ 
sent, I was assured, a very small and insignificant 
branch of industry. Few persons among those from 
whom I sought information knew anything of the 
gathering of manna, or even of the existence of the 
manna-asli in the neighbourhood. One gentleman 
a principal inhabitant of the town and holding an 
official position, to whom I had a letter of introduc¬ 
tion, assured me that the incising of the stems of 
the trees had been sinoe the last four or five years 
forbidden by the Government; and the same state¬ 
ment was made by others. It is plain, however, 
that manna is still gathered about Rossano though 
* Tour through the Southern Provinces of the Kingdom of 
Naples, London, 1821. 
