OYSTOPTERIS. 
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 
pinnm 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 may be cultivated without difficulty 
in pots under shelter, provided they are guarded against 
