332 
California  Manna. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
1       July,  1897. 
sweetening  food.  It  has,  however,  decided  cathartic  properties,  and 
is  oftener  used  by  the  frontier  men  as  a  medicine  than  a  condiment. 
"Its  resemblance  in  taste,  appearance  and  properties  to  manna 
strikes  one  instantly ;  and  but  for  a  slight  terebinthine  flavor,  it 
might  be  substituted  for  that  drug  without  the  knowledge  of  the 
druggist  or  physician,  its  physical  and  medical  properties  are  so 
very  like." 
It  is  not  possible  that  Father  Picolo  refers  to  the  sugar  from 
these  trees,  as  he  failed  to  record  any  cathartic  properties  as  an 
attribute  of  his  sugar ;  furthermore,  the  manner  which  he  describes 
of  collecting  the  sugar  hardly  conforms  to  the  description  just  given 
as  to  the  manner  of  collecting  it  from  these  trees.  It  is  most  prob- 
able, according  to  his  brief  statement  on  the  subject  (for  he  men- 
tions it  as  occurring  "  on  the  leaves  of  the  reeds  "),  that  high  trees 
carrying  sugar  in  their  sap  are  out  of  question,  although  such  sugar 
trees  were  not  unlikely  to  have  been  met  by  him.  For  example, 
also,  {white  maple,  Acer  macrophyllum,  see  appended  list  of  refer- 
ences, No.  8). 
Only  reed  grasses  are  likely  to  come  into  consideration  with  the 
manna  of  Picolo,  and  of  these  we  have  recorded  as  follows : 
(1)  Manna  grass,  Glyceria.  This  seems  to  be  out  of  the 
question,  as  text-books  on  botany  (Gray,  etc.)  state  that  the 
name,  denoting  sweet,  is  given  in  allusion  to  the  taste  of  the  grain. 
(2)  Phragmites  communis,  Trin.  Described  by  U.  S.  Geological 
Exploration  of  the  4.0th  parallel.  C.  King,  5th  vol.  Botany.  S. 
Watson,  p.  390. 
"  Found  from  Florida  to  Canada  and  westward  to  the  Pacific.  On 
the  banks  of  fresh-water  streams  and  springs-  from  the  Truskee  to 
the  East  Humboldt  Mountains,  Nevada,  4-6000  feet  altitude.  Sugar 
is  said  by  Durand  and  Hilgard5  to  be  extracted  from  the  stalks  of 
this  grass  by  the  Indians,  but  the  scanty  juice  is  not  at  all 
saccharine. 
"A  sweet  secretion,  however,  is  sometimes  formed  upon  it  in  con- 
siderable quantity  by  aphides,  as  well  as  upon  the  leaves  of  cotton- 
wood  and  other  trees,  and  is  collected  by  both  the  Utes  and 
the  Mormons." 
If  this  is  correct  [there  is  no  higher  authority  to  be  found  than 
'"Pacific  R.  R.  Surveys,  Bot.  Rep.  By  Durand  and  Hilgard,  Washington, 
D.  C,  1855,  p.  15. 
