Save in the herbarium I have never seen this very local little plant, which is found in certain parts of New Jersey. Gray assigns it to "low grounds, pine barrens," while Dr. Eaton attributes it to the "drier parts of sphagnous swamps among white cedars."
PLATE IV
CURLY GRASS
In my lack of personal knowledge of Schizæa, I venture to quote from that excellent little quarterly, the Fern Bulletin, the following passage from an article by Mr. C. F. Saunders on Schizæa pusilla at home:
"S. pusilla was first collected early in this century at Quaker Bridge, N. J., about thirty-five miles east of Philadelphia. The spot is a desolate-looking place in the wildest of the 'pine barrens,' where a branch of the Atsion River flows through marshy lowlands and cedar swamps. Here, amid sedge-grasses, mosses, Lycopodiums, Droseras, and wild cranberry vines, the little treasure has been collected; but, though I have hunted for it more than once, my eyes have never been sharp enough to detect its fronds in that locality. In October of last year, however, a friend guided me to another place in New Jersey where he knew it to be growing, and there we found it. It was a small open spot in the pine barrens, low and damp. In the white sand grew patches of low grasses, mosses, Lycopodium Carolinianum, L. inundatum, and Pyxidanthera barbulata, besides several smaller ericaceous plants and some larger shrubs, such as scrub-oaks, sumacs, etc. Close by was a little stream, and just beyond that a bog. Although we knew that the Schizæa grew within a few feet of the path in which we stood, it required the closest sort of a search, with eyes at the level of our knees, before a specimen was detected. The sterile fronds (curled like corkscrews) grew in little tufts, and were more readily visible than the fertile spikes, which were less numerous, and, together with the slender stipes, were of a brown color, hardly distinguishable from the capsules of the mosses, and the maturing stems of the grasses which grew all about. Lying flat on the earth, with face within a few inches of the ground, was found the most satisfactory plan of search. Down there all the individual plants looked bigger, and a sidelong glance brought the fertile clusters more prominently into view. When the sight got accustomed to the miniature jungle quite a number of specimens were found, but the fern could hardly be said to be plentiful, and all that we gathered were within a radius of a couple of yards. This seems, indeed, to be one of those plants whose whereabouts is oftenest revealed by what we are wont to term a 'happy accident,' as, for instance, when we are lying stretched on the ground resting, or as we stoop at lunch to crack an egg on the toe of our shoe. I know of one excellent collector who spent a whole day looking for it diligently in what he thought to be a likely spot, but without success, when finally, just before the time for return came, as he was half crouching on the ground, scarcely thinking now of Schizæa, its fronds suddenly flashed upon his sight, right at his feet. The sterile fronds of Schizæa pusilla are evergreen, so that the collector may, perhaps, most readily detect it in winter, selecting days for his search when the earth is pretty clear of snow. The surrounding vegetation being at that time dead, the little corkscrew-like fronds stand out more prominently."