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.
Usage examples of "tamarisk manna".
The Manna of the biblical narrative answers otherwise in its description to the Tamarisk Manna, exuded in June and July from the slender branches of Tamarisk gallica, var.