SCHIZyEA PUSILLA, 



NEW JERSEY SCHIZ/EA. 



NATURAL ORDER, FILICES. 



SCHIZ^A PUSILLA, Pursh. — Sterile fronds linear, very slender, flattened and tortuous ; the fertile 

 ones equally slender, but taller, and bearing at the top the fertile appendage, consisting of 

 about five pairs of crowded pinnae. {Gx^.y^s Mamcal of the Botany of ike Northern United 

 States. See also Wood's Class-Book of Botany, and Eaton's Ferns of North America.') 



!HIS pretty little fern has an unusual interest to the col- 

 lector of our native plants from the fact that it has no 

 close relations in this country; that it has been found in but a few 

 locations in New Jersey and not abundant in any of them; and 

 because its discovery is of comparatively recent date, and most per- 

 sons who go into New Jersey on botanical explorations are gen- 

 erally on the alert to discover new locations for the great rarity. 

 The history of the discovery will afford us some lessons on the 

 " truths " of history, and will illustrate a point we have often had 

 occasion to dwell on in the preparation of these chapters, that 

 authors scrupulously accurate in the description of plants, or mat- 

 ters which come direcdy under their own eyes, often exhibit great 

 carelessness in matters no less important, but which are only inci- 

 dentally associated with the plants they describe. In the Herba- 

 rium of the Lyceum of Natural History of New York, with a spec- 

 imen of the ScJiizcca, is this label in the handwriting of Dr. Torrey : 

 " First discovered by Dr. C. W. Eddy, near Quaker Bridge ; 

 Dr. Eddy was in company with J. Le Conte, Pursh and C. Whit- 

 low, and though he and Mr. Le Conte found all the specimens, 

 Pursh has claimed the honor of the discovery himself" This 

 is signed "Torrey and Cooper, 1818." Underneath this another 

 note signed " Cooper," which says, "First found in 1805, not found 



