| GROUP V | FERTILE AND STERILE FRONDS LEAF-LIKE AND SIMILAR; |
35. HART'S TONGUE
Scolopendrium vulgare (S. scolofendrium)
Shaded ravines under limestone cliffs in Central New York and near South Pittsburg, Tenn. A few inches to nearly two feet long, with stalks which are chaffy below and sometimes to the base of the leaf.
Fronds.—Narrowly oblong, undivided, from a somewhat heart-shaped base, bright-green; fruit-dots linear, elongated, a row on either side of the midrib and at right angles to it; indusium appearing to be double.
When Gray describes a fern as "very rare" and Dr. Britton limits it to two small stations in neighboring counties in the whole northern United States, the fern lover looks forward with a sense of eager anticipation to seeing it for the first time.
During a week spent at Cazenovia, N. Y., a few years ago, I learned that the rare Hart's Tongue grew at Chittenango Falls, only four miles away. But my time was limited, and on a single brief visit to the picturesque spot where the broad Chittenango stream dashes over cliffs one hundred and fifty feet high, losing itself in the wild, wooded glen below on its journey to the distant valley, I did little more than revel in the beauty of the foaming mass which for many days "haunted me like a pas-
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