162 ON THE NARDOO PLANT OF AUSTRALIA. 
survivor of the party, brought with him to Melbourne a number of the 
nardoo fruits, some of which came into the possession of Dr. Moore, of 
Glasnevin; and a few (five only), also gathered by King, reached Dr. 
- Hanstein, of Berlin. 
he exploration party by whom King was rescued collected the 
nardoo fruits on the spot where Mr. Burke died, and these latter fruits 
were received by Sir William Hooker through Captain Washington, the 
hydrographer of the Admiralty, The experiments and observations of 
the above-named eminent botanists have not yet solved the question as 
to the species to which the Nardoo plant belongs, there being no doubt 
that it is some kind of Marsilea. In the last part of his work on 
** Garden Ferns,” Sir William Hooker gives a description of the nardoo 
fruits received by him. He considers them to be the produce ofa 
Marsilea figured in his * Icones Plantarum’ (t. 909), under the name 
of Marsilea macropus, of which the following is the description :— . .* 
"MamsiLEA macropus, Hook.—Leaves peltate, quaternate, and, as well as 
the elongated petioles, sericeo-tomentose, leaflets broad-cuneate, erose at the 
apex; peduncles subradical, elongated, two inches long ; capsules obliquely 
ovate, densely and obliquely sericeo-strigose, transversely but obliquely more 
or less distinctly marked with lines, and gibbous at the base or on one side ; 
` caudex creeping, branched. g 
Sir William Hooker adds, that M. macropus ditfers from M. quadri- 
folia in its larger size, and the remarkably long stalk to the fruit; but 
he thinks it probable that it may not be distinct, as aquatic plants, he 
says, vary so much. . 
‘Through the kindness of Dr. Moore, who has been highly success- 
ful in the treatment of the sporocarps (or fruits) which came to his 
hands,* I am in possession of a vigorous plant raised from one of 
those sporocarps, and which has been growing in my window under & . 
bell-glass, in a pot in which the soil is kept moist. This plant is repre- 
sented in Pl. 6, fig. 1, somewhat reduced, the real height of the largest 
frond being just over one foot. It will be seen by comparing this 
figure with the plate in Sir William Hooker's ‘ Garden Ferns,’ or with a 
that in his * Icones Plantarum,’ that the plant, irrespective of its fruit, 
which has not yet been produced, comes very near to Marsilea ma- 
cropus, Hook. The leaflets of the latter are described by Sir William 
* The ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle’ of August 30, 1862, contains a paper by Dr. Moore, 
in which, amongst other very interesting matter, he states the method adopted by 
him for raising the young plants, 
