The Collaborative International Dictionary
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).]
(Script.) The food supplied to the Israelites in their journey through the wilderness of Arabia; hence, divinely supplied food.
--Ex. xvi. 15.(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.
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(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.
manna lichen \manna lichen\ n. Any of several Old World semicrustaceous or shrubby lecanoras that roll up and are blown about over African and Arabian deserts and used as food by people and animals; same as manna[2].
WordNet
n. any of several Old World semi-crustaceous or shrubby lecanoras that roll up and are blown about over African and Arabian deserts and used as food by people and animals
Usage examples of "manna lichen".
He drank tea made from fragments of dusty bark and ate only dried fruit and the yeasty buds of manna lichen picked from rocks, although he let Yama cook the rabbits and lizards he caught in wire snares set each evening.