*f*3] Spencer, What is Nardoo. 13 



return journey to Menindie. Writing on 27th December, i860, 

 he says : — " At about 6J o'clock a.m. we met with numerous 

 tracks of the natives. . . All at once Peter called out, 

 1 Hye ! hye ! ' and sure enough there was Macpherson at a 

 short distance from us, apparently searching for something 

 on the ground. . . Lyons was at the camp engaged in baking 

 cakes when we came up to him. The seeds of which they pre- 

 pared a warn (?) meal, and out of that either cakes or porridge, 

 is not properly a seed, but the sporangium and the spores of 

 a small plant, the leaves of which are very like clover. It is, 

 I believe, a Marsileana, and everywhere to be met with where 

 water stagnates for a time. . . The plant which saved 

 Macpherson and Lyons's lives is called by the natives 

 Gnadunnea." It is important to note that this is clearly 

 distinguished from other seeds, &c, used for food, because Dr. 

 Beckler adds : — " Here I may as well say that the Portulac * 

 abounds . . . and just now ... it begins to blossom. 

 They (the natives) call it ' dungerow,' and they use the seeds 

 in the same way as the sporangiums of the Marsileaceous plant 

 to make flour." 



In Wills's journal we read (I am quoting from his manuscript) 

 — " Camp No. 9, Thursday, 7th May, 1861. — On our arrival 

 at the camp they (the natives) led us to a spot to camp on, and 

 soon afterwards brought a lot of fish and bread, which they 

 call nardoo." Later on, whilst still at the same camp, he 

 says : — " Mr. Burke and King employed in jerking the camel's 

 flesh, whilst I went out to look for the nardoo seed for making 

 bread. In this I was unsuccessful, not being able to find a single 

 tree of it in the neighbourhood of the camp. I, however, tried 

 boiling the large kind of bean whicli the blacks call padla." 

 This may be taken as evidence that leguminous seeds were not 

 called nardoo by the natives. 



Whilst still at the same camp, Wills writes : — "On approach- 

 ing the foot of the first sand-hill King caught sight in the flat 

 of some nardoo seeds, and we soon found that the flat was 

 covered with them." Lastly, at a later date, Thursday, 20th 

 June, 1861, he writes : — " I cannot understand this nardoo 

 at all — it certainly will not agree with me in any form. We are 

 now reduced to it alone, and we manage to consume from four 

 to five pounds per day between us. It appears to be quite 

 indigestible, and cannot possibly be sufficiently nutritious to 

 sustain life by itself." 



In John King's narrative f he says :-" We had not gone 

 far before we came on a flat, where I saw a plant growing that 



* Claytonia balonnensis and other species. 



f Report of the Commission (Appendix L.) presented to Parliament, 

 Victoria, 1 861-2. 



