Rare: A trailblazing politician and a New York fern | syracuse.com

Read the following story - and consider why is it worth saving ? Is it because it's rare? or does it play a role in overall ecological health. Consider the biological maxim - diversity equals stability.

Rare: A trailblazing politician and a New York fern | syracuse.com

Each day, Bob and I would discuss events in the news and decide how they would fit as campaign issues. This steamy afternoon, the topic was the hart's-tongue fern. Most people hadn't heard of it or the bad news that it was threatened with extinction.

My hope: my candidacy could save it.

We walked in the wilderness for a few minutes and then lost sight of the car. We were in the midst of plants, mud, mosquitoes and, we feared, poison ivy.

We were both more at home in comfortable chairs in the living room, discussing Robert Frost, John Stuart Mill, Ann Sexton or Lionel Trilling. But this campaign issue was worth the hike.

Finally, Bob turned to me: "Karen, do you know what the hart's-tongue fern looks like?"

Actually, no.

"Bob, do you know what the hart's-tongue fern looks like?"

No.

We would have fallen to the ground laughing, except we feared snakes.

I did not win the election for mayor of Syracuse in 1969. (Lee Alexander won.) But I am given credit for helping to lead the effort to save 44 acres of wilderness in Ram's Gulch. The area was threatened with a future as a wasteland because of an option given to Allied Chemical Corp. to buy the land. The area was owned by the Boy Scouts and was for sale. Allied expressed interest in buying the land for industrial expansion.

This land was one of the few remaining wilderness areas in the county. Ninety percent of the national population of the fern is believed to exist in Onondaga and Madison counties.