Mtn spleenwort, Lantern Hill

I first found this plant, which is called a Mountain Spleenwort, in September 2014, when I was on a walk with a group of ardent botanists with a sharp eye for mosses and lichens. These bryologists also knew their ferns, and when we spotted this one, which was growing out of a soil pocket in the Lantern Hill cliffs, everyone got very excited. Asplenium montanum is exceedingly rare in our area, and I had high hopes that we had discovered something new. Turns out we had rediscovered something old. Nelson DeBarros, a botanist for the State of CT, told me that the Mountain Spleenwort population we'd found was actually first documented by Charles Burr Graves, a Yale-educated doctor with a penchant for local natural history, in 1882. Periodic expeditions to the site—the last was in 2006—have been finding A. montanum there ever. So my find was merely a journey of rediscovery. Still, it was new to me, so on the personal nature front, I'd consider it pioneering. On this trip, it was more about reconnecting with an old friend.