'manna lichen' definitions:
Definition of 'manna lichen'
(from WordNet)
noun
Any of several Old World partially crustaceous or shrubby lecanoras that roll up and are blown about over African and Arabian deserts and used as food by people and animals
Definition of 'manna lichen'
From: GCIDE
- 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. [1913 Webster]
- 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}. [1913 Webster]
- 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. [1913 Webster]
- 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. [1913 Webster]
- Manna insect (Zool), a scale insect ({Gossyparia mannipara}), which causes the exudation of manna from the Tamarix tree in Arabia. [1913 Webster]