—54— 



Asplenium Ruta-muraria can be found by careful searching, and 

 A. platyneuron is not uncommon; on the opposite ( south ) cliffs 

 Mr. Hulst, of Brooklyn, found Pellsea Stelleri a few years ago, 

 but several weary searches have failed to reveal the station. 



To the above species we must add Osmunda Claytoniana and 

 Onoclea Struthiopteris ( which, by the way, forms a good genus 

 by itself ) as occasional species of this region, and thus within the 

 circle whose diameter is not over three miles we have thirty-four 

 species of ferns, twenty-seven of which grow in the immediate 

 vicinity of what some of my Syracuse friends have very appropri- 

 ately called Scolopendrium Lake." If there is a locality in the 

 United States that will present so large a list within such nar- 

 row limits, I should be pleased to know of it. 



IN THE HAUNTS OF THE HART'S TONGUE. 



'HE Hart's Tongue ( Phyllitis Scolopendrium ) was first dis- 



covered in America near Syracuse, N. Y., in 1807, by Fred- 



erick Pursh. These first specimens are often referred to 

 Chittenango Falls, but we have it in Pursh's own words that he 

 first detected it "in shady woods among loose rocks in the west- 

 ern part of New York, near Onondaga, on the plantations of J. 

 Geddes, Esq." The two localities are not far apart, and at Chit- 

 tenango Falls the plant still flourishes. With a fern-loving friend 

 I visited the latter station last September. .It is a wild and beau- 

 tiful locality — just the spot to serve as a hiding place for botan- 

 ical rarities. A large stream, the Chittenango, hurrying north- 

 ward to Oneida Lake, here makes a plunge of many feet over a 

 double series of falls, and winds away through a narrow wooded 

 glen, hemmed in by great precipices of corniferous limestone 

 which echo the roar of the waters and are always damp with 

 their spray. The shadier parts of these cliffs shelter the Walk- 

 ing-fern and Slender Cliff brake, while from every dripping ledge 

 the long, tapering fronds of the bulbous Bladder- fern hang like a 

 curtain. On the sunnier walls the Purple Cliff-brake and Rue 

 Spleenwort find a home. Ever since the Chittenango cut its 

 channel through these rocks, wind and weather have been stead- 

 ily at work tearing them to pieces. Huge banks of rock frag- 

 ments slope from the bases of the cliffs to the water. Over them 

 the falling leaves of centuries have spread a soft and yielding car- 

 pet of mould that affords a congenial soil for such trees as the 

 Basswood, Hemlock, Striped Maple, Cedar and others. In the 



