358 SCOLOPENDRIUM OFFICINARUM IN WESTERN NEW YORK. 
was near by, along a high ledge and about a celebrated sulphur spring. 
r. Geddes very kindly extended the hospitalities of the same man- 
sion in which Pursh made his stay while exploring in this region, and 
accompanied the writer to a locality called Split-rock, half a mile south 
of Fairmount, the residence of Mr. Geddes, who confidently believes 
this to be the place where Hart’s-tongue was discovered and formerly 
flourished. He recollects perfectly well bow, when a boy, the existence 
of the Fern having been doubted, his father charged him to search 
carefully for it in his hunting excursions, and directed him specially to 
this locality. Split-rock is another development of the limestone for- 
mation, probably one hundred and fifty feet high and over half a mile 
long, semicircular, with a brook at its base on whose bank is the 
sulphur spring. Its lofty and long rocky slope beneath the cliff, once 
a most favourable station for Scolopendrium, was long since cleared, 
dried up, and trodden over by cattle. Walking-Ferns still linger, and 
even abound where there is any shade, but it is to be feared that all 
Hart’s-tongues have perishe 
In Madison county this sla may be looked for among the upper 
branches of Cowaselon Creek, east of the Chittenango Valley, which 
pass through ravines and over falls; and around a number of pit-hole 
lakes westward. The station below Chittenango Falls, brought to light 
about the year 1830, by William Cooper, Esq., which for so long time 
has been regarded as the only locality of this plant on our continent, 
therefore, must have been unknown to both Pursh and Nuttall. The 
record of the latter, “ S. officinarum, v. v. In the western parts of the 
State of New York, in the crevices of calcareous rocks, beneath the 
shade of the Hemlock Spruce (Abies Paahi and accompanying the 
Taxus Canadensis, or American Yew,” probably is merely a confirmation 
of the habitat of Pursh. His statement, “near Canandaigua, at 
Geddis's Farm, in a shady wood, with Zaaus Canadensis,” as reported 
by Dr. Pickering to Dr. Torrey to have accompanied specimens in the 
herbarium of the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia, most 
ikely was an error for near Onondaga, ete., easily made from similarity 
in the names, or from the indefinite extent covered by the former name 
at that time, 1806-1818. However, no such statement now exists in 
the herbarium at Philadelphia with Nuttall’s specimens; and for the 
identity of his with the habitat of Pursh as above ascertained, we have 
* Geddis's Farm," with both Adies Canadensis and Taaus Canadensis 
. remaining in abundance near by. 
