70 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
River at Pemberton’s Ferry (afterwards Fitzgerald, 
now Croom), about eight miles above the fern locality. 
On February 12, 1891, Prof. L. M. Underwood, taking 
advantage of this railroad, visited the spot, and col- 
lected specimens labeled Pteris Cretica, Asplenium 
firmum, A. rhizophyllum and var. myriophyllum, Poly- 
podium pectinatum, Phegopteris reptans, Adiantum ten- 
erum, and Aspidium trifoliatum. Some of them are 
labeled ‘“Istachatta,’ and some ‘Rocks, banks of 
Withlacoochee River 2% ce below Istachatta.” 
In the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science 
for that year (pp. 86-87) he ablbehed the following 
observations: 
“A still more interesting locality for the rock ferns is on the 
Withlacoochee River, two and a half miles below Istachatta. This 
two houses and a store and must be reached from Pemberton, the 
nearest railroad station. by boat or private conveyance. As the 
exact locality has never been defined it was by merest chance that 
we met Mr. F. M. Townsend, the proprietor of the store in Ista- 
chatta, who conducted Donnell Smith to the same location in 1883. 
The locality. . . was reached just at nightfall. Here, besides 
a much greater protiaieis of the species found at Ocala, are found 
the rare and variable Phegopteris reptans and a great profusion of 
Aspidium trifoliatum. Other stations are found near Brooksville 
and farther down the river on either side. In these sheltered sink 
holes, protected from frost and so far removed from sunshine as to 
etain moisture in the driest season, these relics of a tropical flora 
still persist, never attracting the attention of either the native 
‘eracker’ or the northern migrant, both of whom stare alike at the 
sein and his outfit and doubtless wonder what he can want of 
fearns’. 
Shortly after that a railroad was built north and south 
through Citrus County, to serve the recently discovered 
phosphate mines, and passed within a mile or two 0 
the fern grottoes. W. T. Swi ingle passed that way in 
1894, and in the Columbia University herbarium there 
is a Specimen labeled A favlonsiees syrephatuns from 
