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What is "manna insect"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
Manna insect

Manna \Man"na\ (m[a^]n"n[.a]), n. [L., fr. Gr. ma`nna, Heb. m[=a]n; cf. Ar. mann, properly, gift (of heaven).]

  1. (Script.) The food supplied to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness of Arabia; hence, divinely supplied food.
    --Ex. xvi. 15.

  2. (Bot.) A name given to lichens of the genus Lecanora, sometimes blown into heaps in the deserts of Arabia and Africa, and gathered and used as food; called also manna lichen.

  3. (Bot. & Med.) A sweetish exudation in the form of pale yellow friable flakes, coming from several trees and shrubs and used in medicine as a gentle laxative, as the secretion of Fraxinus Ornus, and Fraxinus rotundifolia, the manna ashes of Southern Europe.

    Note: Persian manna is the secretion of the camel's thorn (see Camel's thorn, under Camel); Tamarisk manna, that of the Tamarisk mannifera, a shrub of Western Asia; Australian, manna, that of certain species of eucalyptus; Brian[,c]on manna, that of the European larch.

    Manna insect (Zo["o]l), a scale insect ( Gossyparia mannipara), which causes the exudation of manna from the Tamarix tree in Arabia.