ON THE NARDOO PLANT OF AUSTRALIA. 163 
Hooker as “ villous with dense silky hairs, especially beneath, and the 
hairs often deciduous above and occasionally beneath, subulate, articu- 
lated, tawny.” ‘his description is exactly applicable to the plant in 
my possession, except that I have not observed the hairs to be deciduous 
beneath, and the hairs are white, not tawny. The colour of the hairs 
may, however, vary with the age of the plant. There is a further slight 
difference in the circumstance that the leaflets of Dr. Moore’s plant, 
when full-grown, are not at all, or very slightly, erose at the apex, al- 
though they are remarkably so in the young state. _ 
I have stated that Dr. Moore’s plant has not yet produced fruit. If 
the fruit should differ materially from that of M. macropus, such dif- 
ference would be of importance ; but Dr. Moore tells me that, according 
to his recollection, the sporocarps from which his plants were raised 
had a hairy outer coat, and thus far, therefore, it would seem that the 
'"Nardoo and M. macropus, Flook., are identical. But the paper pub- 
lished by Dr. Hanstei in the *Monatsberichte ° of the Prussian 
Academy for February, 1862, gives a different aspect to the question. 
Dr. Hanstein draws the following distinctions between the sporocarps 
in his possession and those of M. macropus. The fruits of M. macropus, 
he says, are broadly four-sided, having one side entirely occupied. by 
the raphe; they have a shortly prominent apex, and are characterized 
by dense adpressed hairs. ‘The Nardoo sporocarps, on the other hand, 
are much smaller, almost half-moon-shaped, obtuse, entirely bald, fur- 
nished with many manifest ribs, with two short teeth at the suture. 
He adds, that the Nardoo will probably prove to be a new species ; and 
that he considered it desirable to give a deseription, even although the 
full characteristics were not then known. That description 1s as 
ollows :— 
Mansi salvatrir, n. sp.—Receptaeulum pedunculatum, plane calvum, 
compressum, oblique curvato-oblongum, obtusum, fere duplo longius quam 
latum ; raphe brevissima (vix lineam dimidiam | 
9-10, microsporangia multo crebriora, minora, 
arcte circumdantia ; pedunculus 9" æquans (superans °) ; 
longum 2"! latum, cinereo-fuscum ; caules et folia adhuc ignota. 
If, therefore, any reliance were to be placed upon the hairiness or 
M 2 
