RARE NATIVE PLANTS FERNALD 381 



The limestone ledges of Rock Island at the falls of the Ohio near 

 Louisville, Ky., and New Albany, Ind., were, a century ago, the home 

 of a remarkable number of highly localized plants. At least two of 

 them have never been found elsewhere. One was Psoralea stipulata 

 (pi. 2, fig. 1), the other Solidago Short ii. Each is a unique species, 

 the Psoralea so peculiar that our most intensive student of the group 

 has doubted ^ whether it is a Psoralea at all or whether it may be- 

 long to a wholly different tribe. The solution depends upon securing 

 fruit of the plant, which is now out of the question. "Rock Island 

 * * * was blasted away some years ago when the Ohio was made 

 more navigable." As to Solida.go Shortii, the layman would say 

 "Wliat of it? It is merely another goldenrod of which there are 

 already too many." But consider a moment. When Edison started 

 his studies of new sources of rubber he had as botanical adviser the 

 late Dr. John K. Small. Shortly before his death Small told me that, 

 of the hundreds of species of quickly growing plants which might 

 serve, Solidago Gattingeri had been found to give the greatest yield of 

 rubber. To the layman, again, Solidago Gattingeri is merely another 

 goldenrod; to the economist it is a most promising quickly grown 

 source of rubber; to the student of the flora it is a highly localized 

 plant of a few limestone glades and knobs of Tennessee and adjacent 

 Missouri. Luckily for the future of the rubber industry this golden- 

 rod had not been exterminated before its economic importance was 

 discovered! Incidentally, where would man and his civilization be 

 today had not our "primitive" peoples of the past rescued, before 

 their extermination in the wild state, such seemingly indispensable 

 cereals as wheat and maize (Indian corn) ? Who, in our present 

 rudimentary state of intelligence, can predict what rare, localized, and 

 usually overlooked species has economic possibilities? 



Instances of the destruction of the last or only living colonies of 

 other rare plants by the blasting away of ledges or the building of 

 dams will occur to every experienced field botanist ; and the pollution 

 of rivers by strong chemicals from pulp mills and factories has been 

 as fatal to the native flora of river gravels as to the salmon, shad, 

 and other important fishes of the river channels. Some of the most 

 amazing of plants grow only near rivers. On the upper St. John, 

 between Maine and New Brunswick, there is a unique species of wood 

 betony, Pedicularis Furhishiae (pi. 2, fig. 2), named for its discoverer, 

 Kate Furbish. Under the manufactured English name, "Miss Fur- 

 bish's lousewort," it does not sound very interesting. Its only close 

 relative, however, is on the other side of the world, in the mountains 

 near Lake Baikal in southern Siberia. It is, then, one of the most 

 telling evidences that life on the upper St. John was not wholly 



^See Rydberg. Torreya, vol. 26, p. 89, 1926. 



