Special Feature | MNA
Following the Hart: The 200 Year-Old Story of the American Hart’s-Tongue Fern German botanist Frederick Pursh got his big break in 1807. The 33-year-old was hired with $60 in Philadelphia to catalog and illustrate plants from the Lewis and Clark Expedition. But before Pursh began that endeavor - which would actually end with him running off to Europe with many of those specimens and publishing there - he was committed to a plant collection trip. His journey - sometimes on foot, sometimes by carriage - included a discovery that publications would recount for centuries to come. On July 20, 1807, in a valley west of Onondaga Lake, New York, Pursh found American hart’s-tongue fern (Asplenium scolopendrium var. americanum) tucked into the large limestone rocks. A resemblance to the European variety caught his eye. “I thought the most of Asplenium scolopendrium - this fern which I don’t find mentioned by any one to grow in America I always had a notion to be here; and indeed I was quit enjoyed to find my prejudice so well founded in truth [sic],” wrote Pursh in his journal.
The site was lost, then found, threatened by quarrying and timber harvest, and stressed by invasive species and weather patterns. It’s also been surveyed, researched extensively, boosted with captivegrown plants, and received the best care science can bestow upon it. Plus, it’s protected into the future as Split Rock Unique Area. That may be the original American hart’s-tongue fern tale, but a recent review shares similar advances across much of the plant’s range — primarily a narrow band stretching from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, through south-central Ontario and into Central New York. As a result, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommends the plant be removed from the federal threatened species list. If finalized, the decision would close a 31-year chapter in a story certain to continue. Of harts and minds Ferns have their roots far, far into the world’s past. They are among the earliest plants recorded, their existence stretching back about 400 million years. Roughly 70 species of ferns exist in New York alone.
American hart’s-tongue fern has a tropical appearance, with shiny undivided fronds. Photo by John Wiley, USFWS.
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michigan nature| winter 2022
