themselves as easily with the Mardoo,* and prepared it as readily 
as the natives do, their lives might have been spared to their 
country, which owed so much to their exertions. 
The specimens I first received of the Mardoo fruits, if we may 
be allowed so to call them, were from Captain Washington, 
hydrographer to the Admiralty, inscribed as “ Mardoo seed, 
taken from the patch on the spot where Burke died, Cowper’s 
Creek, near Camp xxxt., lat. 27° 42’ south, long. 140° 406’ east, 
collected by E. T. Welch, September 25th, 1861.” These, from 
their large size and shape and long fulvous sericeo-strigose cloth- 
ing, I had no hesitation in referring to my Marstlea macropus, 
of the same country. In a printed catalogue I have very recently 
received from Dr. Mueller, of the vegetable products sent by 
the Victoria Government to the International Exhibition of this 
year, and find a notice under Class IIL., p. 118, of “ Wardoo 
fruit and flour,’ sent (but not yet arrived) by the Exploration 
Committee, with the remark that they are derived from Marsilea 
quadrifolia, L., var. hirsuta, of Dr. F. Mueller. In this we have 
both come to the same conclusion, for that plant is identical with 
my AL. macropus. It may still be a question whether it should 
be looked upon as a species, or distinct from the Europcan 
JL. quadrifolia. 1 am well aware how very liable aquatic plants 
are to vary. 
* In the Narrative of the Expedition, “ Nardoo fields” are spoken of, mean- 
ing probably swampy grounds abounding in the Nardoo, and of the occupation 
of gathering and pounding the Nardoo ; and in oue place it is said, “Two days 
after leaving the spot where Burke died I found some gunyahs (bark huts), where 
the natives had deposited a bag of Nardoo, sufficient to last me a fortnight.” 
Elsewhere, ‘‘ We gathered some Nardoo, and boiled the seeds, as we were unable 
to pound them.” And again: “On the following day Mr. Wills and I went 
out to gather Nardoo, of which we obtained a supply sufficient for three days, 
and finding a pounding-stone at the gunyahs, Mr. Wills and I pounded the 
seed, which was such slow work that we were compelled to use half flour and 
half Nardoo.” 
Piatt 638. Fertile plant of the Nardoo, Marsilea macropus, Hook.,—natural 
size. Tig. 1, One of the leaflets. 2. Capsule, with a portion of the footstalk. 
3. Vertical section of the capsule. 4. Transverse section of the same. 5. One 
of two bodies contained in the cells of the capsule, consisting of a pyriform sac, 
including minute granules, represented at Fig. 6. Fig. 7 and 8. Another and 
larger sac from the cells, including an oval body, which, when broken, is found 
to contain very minute spores, represented at Fig. $:—all more or less magnified. 
