GYSTOPTERIS. 181 



Cystopteris regia, Presl. 

 The Alpine Bladder Fern. (Plate X. fig. 2.) 



This diminutive but very elegant plant is quite a gem. 

 It has a close- tufted stem, producing from its crown 

 numerous bright green fronds, usually four to six, but 

 sometimes as much as ten inches high. These grow up 

 in May, and die away in autumn. Their form is lanceo- 

 late, the mode of division bipinnate, with the pinnules so 

 deeply pinnatifid as to render them almost tripinnate. 

 The stipes is short, smooth, and scaly at the base. The 

 pinnjB are nearly opposite, with a winged rachis, ovate, 

 divided into bluntly ovate pinnules, these latter being 

 deeply cleft, almost down to their midvein, into short, 

 blunt, linear lobes, which are either entire, or have two 

 or three blunt teeth. The midvein of the pinnules is 

 nearly straight, with a vein, simple or divided, branching 

 off to each lobe, one branch extending to the point of 

 each marginal tooth. The small roundish sori are rather 

 numerous, but not confluent, borne near the margin, and 

 covered by concave membranous indusia. 



This species, which nfiay be cultivated without difficulty 

 in pots under shelter, provided they are guarded against 



