161 
ON THE NARDOO PLANT OF AUSTRALIA, 
By Freperick Currey, M.A., F.R.S. 
(Prate VI.) 
The plant to which the present paper relates has acquired a special 
and melancholy interest from its connection with the fate of the unfor- 
tunate men who died of starvation on their homeward journey, after 
having safely traversed the continent of Australia, from Melbourne to 
the Gulf of Carpentaria. The expedition left Melbourne on the 20th 
of August, 1860, and reached Menindie, on the river Darling, towards 
the end of September. On the llth of November they arrived at 
Cooper’s Creek, a sort of inland lake or watercourse, about 400 miles 
north of Menindie. Here a depot was formed and left in charge of 
some of the party, whilst Messrs. Burke, Wills, King, and Gray pro- 
ceeded northwards. Gray died on the return journey, about four days 
hefore the party arrived at Cooper’s Creek; and when Burke, Wills, 
and King reached that place, on the 21st of April, 1861, they had the 
mortification of finding that the party in charge of the depót had left it 
that very morning. In a state of great exhaustion, Burke, Wills, and 
King determined on going south-west towards Mount Hopeless, a point 
not far from Mount Searle, one of the South Australian police-stations. 
In Mr, Wills’s diary, under the date of Tuesday, May 7, 1861, is an 
entry that on that day they fell in with some blacks who were fishing, 
and he then adds: “They gave us some half-a-dozen fish each for 
luncheon, and intimated that if we would go to their camp we should 
have some more, and some bread. . . . On our arrival at the camp they 
led us to a spot to camp on, and soon afterwards brought a lot of 
fish and bread, which they call nardoo. . . . In the evening various 
members of the tribe came down with lumps of nardoo and handfuls of 
fish, until we were positively unable to eat any more.’’* 
Some doubt still exists as to the plant from which the “ nardoo” 
above referred to was obtained. Tt is a kind of flour procured by pound- 
ing the sporocarps or fruit of some species of Marsilea, but the parti- 
cular species is at present not satisfactorily ascertained. King, the 
* The above short details are taken from the account of the expedition, by 
Mr. Andrew Jackson, published by Smith and Elder in 1862. ^ 
VOL. I M 
