50 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 
THE UPPER DEVONIAN FOREST OF SEED FERNS IN 
EASTERN NEW YORK 
BY WINIFRED GOLDRING 
The “ Gilboa trees’ have been known to science for over half a 
century, but only within the last 3 years has it been discovered that 
New York actually had an extensive and very ancient fossil forest 
in its eastern domain. This forest remained hidden away in the 
Upper Devonian (Ithaca) rocks of Schoharie until 1869. In the 
fall of this year a great freshet swept the upper valley of the 
Schoharie in the vicinity of the village of Gilboa tearing out bridges, 
culverts and roadbeds, but greatly benefiting science by exposing in 
the bedrock standing stumps of trees. 
The discovery of these trees was described in the Albany Argus 
of January 30, 1870, and in the 24th Report of the State Museum ;? 
and was considered of so much importance that it was brought by 
Hall to the attention of the British Association for the Advancement 
of Science at the Brighton meeting in 1872.2. Excavations were 
made during the year 1870 in the beds of sandstone containing these 
trees and five stumps and a number of fragments were taken out of 
this ancient forest, all at the same level in the rocks. The greater 
part of this material was brought to the State Museum where it has 
for some time constituted a remarkable exhibit of the ancient, extinct 
flora of the State. 
The Gilboa collections were submitted to Sir William Dawson of 
Montreal for examination, and he determined the fossil trunks to be 
of two species, which he named Psaronius erianus and 
P. textilis. The trunks were noted as being in an upright 
position with their bases resting in and upon a soft shaly stratum, 
representing the bed of clay in which they appeared to have 
grown; and the facts of their occurrence led to the conclusion that 
“we had evidence of comparatively dry land on the eastern margin 
of the Devonian sea.’* It was also inferred “ that this area during 
the deposition of these beds was undergoing continuous oscillation 
of level, with a general downward movement.” * 
This Schoharie, or Gilboa, forest is the earliest recorded forest of 
the earth. The old locality had long since been covered up and the 
rocks at the level in which the trees were discovered did not outcrop 
1 Hall, James. 24th Rep’t N. Y. State Cab. Nat. Hist., 1872, p. 15, 16. 
?Rep’t ‘Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci., 1872, v. 42, Trans., p. 103. 
* Ref. cit., p. 103. 
