HUMAN Food AND Foop ApJUNcTS.” 
Hooker, in his flora of Tasmania, truly remarks that the 
products of many plants, although ‘‘eatable,” are not ‘fit to eat,” 
and would never be employed as food except in the direst 
necessity. Australian indigenous fruits, roots, leaves, and stems 
are nothing to boast of as eatables ; and, as in the greater part of 
this continent there is a very great scarcity, or even entire absence 
of water, an explorer can rarely traverse long distances without 
taking suitable food with him. ; 
There is little doubt that most of those which are here 
recorded as having been utilised for food in other countries are 
also eaten by the omnivorous Australian aboriginal. Besides 
these, only those parts of certain plants have been referred 
to which have been recorded as having been used as food by 
aboriginals and colonists. Extended observations must greatly 
augment the list. 
Knowledge in regard to the indigenous vegetable food 
resources of these colonies should be considered an absolute 
necessity by those whose avocations take them out of beaten tracks, 
especially in the dry country, while the ordinary citizen may find 
himself occasionally in a position in which an acquaintance with 
the scanty vegetable food products of the bush would be useful to 
him. 
AzsoricinaL Mrtuop or Optaininc WarTER. 
We are indebted to the aboriginals for a method of obtaining 
water, and that from a source in which we should perhaps least 
look for it. This simple method, which had best be given in the 
words of those who have had much intercourse with the blacks, 
is now given, and no adult in Australia should be ignorant of it. 
* This section forms the substance of a paper entitled, “‘ Australian Human Foods and 
Food-Adjuncts,’’ read by the author before the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 
30th May, 1888. 
B 
