The Nardoo Plant 139 



it a possibility for the desert natives to draw it into use as 

 one of the constituents of their vegetable diet. 



It may be well imagined, that a plant dispersed like the 

 Marsilea over so wide a range of country, is altering much 

 its form according to circumstances, yet in watching long and 

 closely the plant in its native state, it becomes to me equally 

 evident, that all the Australian Marsilese, as far as seen by 

 myself, are referable to one species, unless the internal 

 structure of the sporangia, which I had not always an oppor- 

 tunity of examining, should yield distinctive notes by which 

 some of the forms could be unfailingly recognised. Already 

 Robert Brown, in his Golden Prodromus, published in 

 the year 1810, of which the world has unfortunately only 

 seen one volume, comprising not more than about one-third 

 of the 'phaznogamous genera of the Australian Flora, iden- 

 tified without any doubt the typical Linnean Marsilea 

 quadrifolifi, as indigenous to the vicinity of Port Jackson. 

 ISTot having seen, at that early period of botanical investiga- 

 tion in Australia, any intermediate forms, he added two new 

 species, viz., Marsilea hirsuta and Marsilea angusti folia, 

 found by him simultaneously at Port Jackson ; the latter, 

 according to his observations, extending thence to the 

 tropics. 



The members present may, from the series of specimens of 

 Marsilea exhibited on this occasion out of our state herba- 

 rium, form an opinion how far the diagnostic notes offered 

 for these two additional species can be admitted as reliable, 

 when it is borne in mind that the differences rest not on internal 

 carpological characters, but merely on indument, form of 

 leaflets, and proportionate length of fruit-stalks. The variety 

 designated by R Brown, as Marsilea hirsuta, extends more 

 widely over Australia than any other, it being that state of 

 Marsilea quaclrifolia frequently but not always produced by 

 the recess of water, when generally the plant assumes a silky 

 hairiness ; it is also, as already remarked, this variety which 

 so abundantly fructifies, the aquatic form being often devoid 

 of fruit. The variety named by R Brown, Marsilea angiis- 

 tifolia, I have found hitherto in Arnhemsland only, where it 

 grows in still lagoons, and varies according to the depth 

 of water much in length, specimens having been mea- 

 sured nearly two feet long. Amongst the forms preserved in 

 our herbarium, occurs also the Marsilea erosa, remarkable 

 for the irregular denticulation of the anterior margin of the 

 leaflets, but by no means specifically distinct from Marsilea 



