PHEGOPTERIS ALPESTRIS, Mettenius. Alpine Beech-Fern. Phegopteris alpestris:—Root-stock short and thick, erect or oblique; stalks sub-terminal, four to ten inches long, bearing a few brown spreading scales near the base; fronds one to two feet long, oblong-lanceolate, membranaceous, smooth, pinnate with delicately bi-pinnatifid deltoid-lanceolate pinnæ, the lower ones distant, and decreasing moderately; pinnules ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, doubly incised and toothed; sori small, rounded, naked, usually copious on all or all but the lowest pinnæ. _Phegopteris alpestris_, Mettenius, Fil. Hort. Lips., p. 83; Phegopteris, p. 10. _Polypodium alpestre_, Hoppe, “in Spreng. Syst. Veg., iv., par. ii., p. 320.”—Koch, Syn. Fl. Germ., “ed. 2, p. 974;” ed. 3, p. 731.—Moore, Nat. Pr. Brit. Ferns, t. vii.—Hooker & Arnott, Brit. Fl., ed. 7, p. 582.—Hooker, Brit. Ferns, t. vi.; Sp. Fil., iv., p. 251.—Hooker & Baker, Syn. Fil., p. 311. _Aspidium alpestre_, Swartz, Syn. Fil., p. 421.—Schkuhr, Krypt. Gew., p. 58, t. 60. _Asplenium alpestre_, Mettenius, Asplenium, p. 198, t. vi., figs. 1-6. _Pseudathyrium alpestre_, Newman, “Phytologist, iv., p. 370;” Hist. Brit. Ferns, ed. iii., p. 200. _Athyrium alpestre_, “Nylander;” Milde, Fil. Eu. & Atl., p. 53. _Polypodium rhæticum_, Linnæus, Sp. Pl., p. 1552, _fide_ Schkuhr, l. c.; but Moore thinks the plant not the same. _Aspidium rhæticum_, 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 branching, 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. 39½° 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.”