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.
is the subject of a definition by Johnson. It is the exudation or juice (then solidifed) of the manna-ash ( Fraxinus ornus), grown in southern Italy -- a variant, from the larch, came from France -- it was mildly laxative.