Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (1)
1.
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;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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 1.5]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
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]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
manna lichen
n 1: 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