The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1901-10-24
NO MIRACLE IN MAMMA.
An Edible I.ichen That Is Still Found In
Parts of Asia and Africa.

III 4 IA IA
Sunday Magazine: 1T is mammal"
exclaimed the people of Israel as they
gathered the food which seemed SO
~miraculously to appear 1T their very
feet In answer to their cry for sus-
tenance but though they ate and were
satisfied. yet, we are told, they 'wist
not WHAT it was"
And during the ages that have passed
since It's first appearance on that mem
orable dewy morning in the wider
ness of sin, men have declared again
and again that they twist not what it
was" that thus fed the Israelites in
their need, though numberless ~conjec-
held on the matter.
The chief opinion which had sway
Tor a long time was that mamma was
the sap of the tamarisk: but now au-
thorities, seeing in the light Of widen
ing scientific knowledge, declare that
mamma was without doubt a certain
i1chen Lecanora esculenta).
This is borne out by the fact that
Well authenticated rains OF mama, alb
solutely believed by the inhabitants to
pc owe from heaven, have been
reported at least six times during the
past century by reliable travellers in
the east, and the descriptions of the
deposit given in precise present-day
point.
II a piece Of mann be examined UNI
der the microscope its peculiar COM
pound structure can be clearly seen;
there Is a delicate network of inter
laclng fungal threads glistening in the
light, while inclosed in their meshes are
a number Of round, bright green cells,
each a tiny algal plant. Thus fungus
n alga live together in most init
mate connection.
1t may be asked how fresh mamma
llchens arise, seeing that it is difficult
TO imagine q frequent coincident meet
ing of a particular fungus and a par
tlcular green plant. But, granted he
meeting has once taken place, the rapid
reproduction Is easy to understand.
At certain times in the year a yell
loWlsh dust appears in little green cups
growing on the surface of the plant,
and each of the grains of dust is a
minute bundle containing a few or the
white faments and a few of the green
cells wrapped up together, so that
wherever this dust may fall each grain
can become a new manna-lichen.
There is, moreover, a second method
OF reproduction in which the fungus
alone takes part and sends out tiny Off
spring to take their chance in the wide
world OF finding a suitable host as their
parent has done, but the details are
complicated and at present involved in
some obscurity.
II lIlSl lAcGSillOId
na-is In it's very nature one of the
most remarkable phenomena in the
vegetable world. 1t is found over great
tracts of southwest Asia, heal Con-
stantinople, in the Crimea, the deserts
of Arabia, in the Sahara and the des-
erts Of Algeria.
1t is easy to pass it by unnoticed, for
it is grayish yellow in color and grows
on gray limestone rocks and Fragments
or rocks In the form OF a wrinklad
crust, which seems to a casual OBJ
server part of the very rock itself, and
needs care to distinguish it.
Cut through, 1t is white like corn
within. dry and powdery; it is, more
over, extremely light in weight. Ii is
obvious that there Is not much nourish-
ment to be obtained from the bare
face of the limestone rock-hence all
the ~sustenance Of the two plants must
be obtained from the atmosphere and
the rain by the little green plant, which
must thus work doubly hard to be able
to pass on sufficient food for it's part
iner's living, in addition to providing It's
own.
By degrees, as it grows older, it be-
comes loosened, or even detached from
the rocks, and then, when the sudden
whirlwinds n violent storms which
affect many of these regions blow, the
featherweight pieces Of lichen crust are
torn up and blown into the air at the
mercy of the wind, and carried, it may
be, for immense distances.
The rains, too. that descend with
such sudden v~ehemence. sweep it away
into water channels. where it Is borne
along on the stream and deposited in
hollows, and left there in heaps when
the water subsidies.
At times, too, q waterspout will gath
err it up, carry it along and ultimately
deposit it in a place where hitherto
it had been practically unknown