Part of what I personally hope to do as part of NAMA is to shed light on this group of grains we call millets. As part of that particular effort, I do some research, and occasionally that comes up with something unexpected. Today, in looking for more on "Polish millet" (Digitaria sanguinalis; aka large crabgrass), I came across an association of that common name with floating sweetgrass (Glyceria fluitans), a wetland plant whose grains were gathered. The latter is also called manna or manna grass, but that term is also used more broadly to include D. sanguinalis, a cultivated crop, and D. ischaemum, another wild gathered grain, and apparently also the rare medicinal product of Fraxinus ornus. Common names are often a bit fuzzy, but in this case research is further complicated as these grains are no longer grown or gathered as they once were. They were part of a complex within food and ag of central Europe, dating back to the Middle Ages. Of these, only D. sanguinalis was cultivated and would be considered a millet, and one conclusion from my research excursion is confirmation of its former presence as a crop in Poland and Germany. Below, for your info and for the record are: a YouTube video on only G. fluitans as "manna."; and two articles treating the complex. 1. "Sweet manna grass (Glyceria fluitans), a forgotten cereal from European marshlands," Lukasz Luczaj (author of "Foraging in Eastern Europe") https://youtu.be/SF3jsWTzvxk?si=EcAmDUVa8TZjKMXs (18:51) 2. Jacek Drobnik, "Manna polska od XVI do XIX w. pod względem botanicznym i leczniczym" (=Polish manna grass in the 16th to 19th centuries: a botanical and medicinal approach), Etnobiologia Polska Vol. 5 – 2015: 67-87 https:// https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Gramen-mannae-esculentum-Prutenicum-nier... English Abstract (article is in Polish): "Floating sweet-grass Glyceria fluitans (L.) R. Br. is the first edible wild grass confirmed to be in use in Poland as early as the 1380s. In the second half of the 18th century, it was reported as a food species from Hungary and eastern Germany. Apart from G. fluitans, two species of finger-grass were known in Poland: hairy finger-grass Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop. (= Panicum sanguinale L.) was extensively cultivated, and smooth finger-grass D. ischaemum (Schreb.) Muhl., a weed, was harvested from wild populations; they were both used already in the first half of the 17th century. Moreover, another still unidentified grass closely resembling any species of hybrid fescue (×Festulolium Asch. et Graebn.) was described in Prussia in 1703 (together with the method of threshing), and it is very likely that knowledge of this species was brought from Poland. Botanists of the 18th–19th centuries misidentified this grass as Glyceria fluitans many a time. Manna-grasses spread from Poland toward the west and south, in the 18th century, initially in the form of imported food grain. By degrees they were introduced to cultivation at least in Czech lands, Brandenburg, and Lusatia. The grain of the abovementioned four grass species, called manna-grain (Polish manna, and probably also the Prussian manna) is first known as an ingredient of poor though nutritious meals (porridge, poultices), whilst manna grain flour was used to make sweet pies (Latin: fercula), and it might also be an additive to bread flour. This food was noted in late-18th century pharmaceutical books as a kind of an alimentary material. Pharmacopoeias of that time mentioned (almost solely) the grain of G. fluitans. Dishes prepared from manna were recommended principally as meals for patients suffering from debilitating diseases, for convalescents, and in some “humoral disorders”. These preparations of manna grains have been retained in European pharmacopoeias, formularies and dispensatories by the first half of the 19th century." 3. Łukasz Jakub Łuczaj, Jarosław Dumanowski, Piotr Köhler, & Aldona Mueller-Bieniek, "The Use and Economic Value of Manna grass (Glyceria) in Poland from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century," Human Ecology (2012) 40:721–733 DOI 10.1007/s10745-012-9513-4 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/257568721_The_Use_and_Economic_Valu... Excerpt: "In Poland the word manna was used for three products: manna grass grains (mainly G. fluitans), the source of one of the main types of kasza (i.e., cereal groats); a cultivated cereal Panicum sanguinale L. (now Digitaria sanguinalis (L.) Scop.) grown in dry areas (Maurizio 1926,1927) in both Poland and Germany; and the rare and expensive Fraxinus ornus [manna ash] secretion, manna kalabryjska, which occasionally appeared traded as medicine (Kluk 1787)." Further notes: * When "Polish millet" was brought to North America, it would clearly have been D. sanguinalis. * G. fluitans "water manna grass" is wild and has found its way to North America, where it is present in some areas - see https://floranorthamerica.org/Glyceria_fluitans . For more on the species, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyceria_fluitans Finally, since G. fluitans is nether a millet, not native to our region, nor cultivated, I don't plan to return to this topic. Don Osborn, PhD (East Lansing, MI, US) North American Millets Alliance