SCHIZ/EA PUSILLA. NEW JERSEY SCIIIZ.EA. 131 



Dr. Caspar Wistar Eddy, whose name is so prominent in con- 

 nection with the discovery of this fern, was a relative of Dr. 

 Samuel L. Mitchell, the founder of the New York Lyceum of 

 Natural History, of which young Eddy was one of the incorpo- 

 rators. He was very zealous in the cause of botany for a while, 

 and Torrey named a genus Bddya, after him. In 1 814 he began 

 an edition of Miller's Dictionary. The next year we read of his 

 proposing to write an elementary work on botany, "preserving 

 the best features of the Linnsean system," but expunging all the 

 terms that had relation to the sexes of flowers. But this seems 

 to have been also abandoned, for soon after we find him pro- 

 jecting the issue of a popular colored Flora of the United States, 

 similar to that we are now engaged in. He died soon after, still 

 young in years. 



By Muhlenberg's letters it appears that it Avas Pursh's inten- 

 tion to call the newly discovered Schiz(Ea, S. toi'tuosa, in allusion 

 to its twisted fronds ; but when his work was issued it was de- 

 scribed as SchizcEcv pusilla, the name it now bears. This is, 

 perhaps, in consideration of its small size in comparison with 

 other species, of which there are over a dozen, found chiefly 

 in tropical America, Australia, the islands in the Pacific ocean, 

 southern Africa and the Himalaya mountains. Most of these 

 have the peculiarity of our species in being locally distributed 

 and not occurring to a very wide extent in any one place. Since 

 the first discovery at Quaker Bridge, it has been found in a few 

 other places in New Jersey, and recently in Nova Scotia. In 

 these spots the country is almost impenetrable from the dense 

 vegetation clothing the swamps, and those who explore have 

 to follow closely the track of those who have gone before. It 

 will, no doubt, be found more abundant some day. 



The plant now illustrated was gathered by the author in a 

 location discovered by Mr. Charles F. Parker on the Atsion river. 

 It was growing in company with Droscra filiforniis, cranberries, 

 and small sedge grasses, just as represented on the plate ; and 

 Sarracenia purpurea and many ericaceous plants were growing 



