THE HART S-TONGUE IN TENNESSEE 



By Dr. E. L. Lee. 



Recently I visited the station for Scolopendrium near 

 South Pittsburg, Tennessee — the only reported station 

 for the fern in the South. Whether the surroundings 

 and peculiar locality were described at the time the fern 

 was reported is unknown to me, but a little of its history 

 may be interesting to fern lovers. This fern was located 

 by Mr. Cheatham (a brother of General Cheatham), who 

 at the time had charge of a branch of the state prison of 

 Tennessee at the Battle Creek mines, near South Pitts- 

 burg. He was a fern lover, and was making a collection 

 for himself and friend, when he found the Scolopendrium 

 in the most unlooked for place. He believed he had dis- 

 covered a new fern, and named it the Bune fern, in honor 

 of O. R. Bune, on whose place he found it. There was 

 no one else enthused at the time except Mr. Cheatham. 

 Had it been sang, our people would have recognized it. 

 Later, when South Pittsburg sprang into some promi- 

 nence, there came to that place a Mr. Middleton, an edu- 

 cated Englishman and an enthusiastic botanist, who had 

 a mania for snakes and ferns. Since they grew together 

 in the Cumberland Mountains, he could kill two birds 

 with one stone. He was shown the station, and we sup- 

 pose the fern was reported by him. 



South Pittsburg is on the Tennessee River, where it 

 first touches the Cumberland Mountains, after its mad 

 escape through the mountains below Chattanooga. It is 

 two miles from the Alabama State line — five miles from 

 Bridgeport, Ala., on the Nashville and Chattanooga Rail- 

 road, and on a branch of the above road leading to Pike- 

 ville. The flora of the Cumberland is rich and varied, 

 especially so just at this place, or beginning at this place. 



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