Sept. 1, 1864.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



ON THE "NARDOO" PLANT OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA. 93 



be breaking up in form and decaying ; whilst the sporangia, which had 

 not vegetated, retained their perfect form, unaltered in consistence. The 

 progress of the young plants does not authorise me to make further ob- 

 servations on them at present ; but on some future occasion I hope to 

 be able to state with certainty which species of Marsilea is the " Nardoo" 

 of Cooper's Creek, when the plants become fully developed. If Marsilea 

 quadrifolia, which Dr. Harvey informs me is common through east and 

 middle Australia, it has been cultivated at Glasnevin for a number of 

 years ; but if it be the large species gathered by Drummond in the Swan 

 River district, and so kindly lent by Dr Harvey for this occasion, it will 

 prove a valuable and interesting acquisition. 



The following description was published in Australia : — 



" The Nardoo belongs to that class of fiowerless plants which have 

 distinguishable stems and leaves, in contradistinction to that in which 

 stem and leaves are undistinguishable — as seaweed, fungi, and lichens. 

 The part used for food is the involucre sporangium, or spore case, with 

 its contained spores, which is of an oval shape, flattened, and about an 

 eighth of an inch in its longest diameter, hard and horny in texture, and 

 requiring considerable force to crush or pound it when dry, but becom- 

 ing soft and mucilaginous when exposed to moisture. 



u It is the same substance that sustained Macpherson and Lyons when 

 they were lost, in 1860, between Ellenindie and Cooper's Creek, a fruit 

 of it serving them a day. They pounded it, in the manner of the 

 natives, between two stones, and made it into cakes like flour. The 

 spores vegetate in water, and root in the soil at the bottom, where the 

 plants grow to maturity. After the water dries up, the plants die and 

 leave the spore cases on, in many instances quite covering the dried 

 mud, and it is then that they are gathered for food. On the return of 

 moisture, either from rain or the overflowing of rivers, the spore cases 

 are softened, become mucilaginous, and discharge their contents to pro- 

 duce a fresh crop of plants. 



" The foliage is green and resembles clover, being composed of three 

 leaflets on the top of a stalk a few inches in length. This order contains 

 five genera and twenty-four species, all of which are inhabitants of 

 ditches or inundated places. They do not appear to be affected so 

 much by climate as by situation, and have been detected in all the four 

 quarters of the globe, chiefly, however, in the temperate latitudes. 

 Their uses are unknown to European botanists. If the Nardoo grains 

 are carefully opened without crushing them, the spores can be readily 

 perceived, of a regular oval form, with the aid of a magnifying glass of 

 small power." 



