56 
BEAUTIFUL FERNS. 
Athyrium alpestrc, “ Nylander ; ” Milde, Fil. Eu. & At!., p. 53. 
Polypodium rluoticum, Linna;us, Sp. PL, p. \ ^^2, fide Schkuhr, 1 . c.; but 
Moore thinks the plant not the same. 
Aspiditmi rhcetimm, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 59. — Willdenow, Sp. PL, v., 
p. 280. 
Hab. — Among rocks at high elevations; on Lassen’s Peak, Mount 
Shasta, Pyramid Peak, Mount Rose, and other high points in the Sierra 
of California, Brewer, Lemmon, Muir ; Cascade Mountains of British 
Columbia, Lyall. In the Alps and the mountains of Northern Europe ; 
also in the Caucasus, and in Asia Minor. 
Description. — The root-stock is rather short, but branch- 
ing, and seems to form great entangled masses. The fronds 
stand in a crown or circle, rising from the end of the root- 
stock, which is made thick and heavy with the chaffy bases 
of former stalks. Mr. Lemmon writes thus : “ It grows in a 
limited locality, so far as I know, near the summit of Mount 
Rose, near Webber Lake, and say at an elevation of 7,000 feet ; 
lat. 39^° N. Fronds collected into a large mass four feet across, 
short at the circumference, in the centre three feet high ; most of 
them fertile, and densely so, as in the specimen sent.” 
The stalks are usually but a few (four to six) inches long, 
and in the dried specimens of a brownish straw-color, becom- 
ing nearly black at the base. They bear a few large ferrugi- 
nous chaffy scales, and are deeply channelled and furrowed. The 
fibro-vascular system of the stalk is altered by contraction in 
drying, but apparently agrees with Dr. Milde’s description of 
Athyrium : “There are two oblong peripheric bundles in the 
