VARIEGATED AND CRESTED FERNS. 



39 



plant are, no doubt, the characters which have secured a well-deserved 

 popularity for this Fern. It is particularly well adapted for the decoration 

 of the dwelling-room, where, provided it receive careful treatment, it will 

 remain for a long time in perfect health, the broad silver bands which occupy 

 the centre of its fronds, and the bright green colour peculiar to their edges, 

 being extremely attractive. A thoroughly distinctive character of this species 

 lies in the great dissimilarity of its barren and fertile fronds : the former, 

 forming the body of the plant, are broad, and of a somewhat spreading 

 habit, while the latter, much narrower in all their parts, are erect and well 

 above the others, thus giving the plant a highly ornamental apj)earance. We 

 have in the home-raised variety Mayi a crested form of P. cretica, in 

 which the dissimilarity of fronds, as a distinctive character, has not been 

 reproduced. Although in this case the variegation is of equal brilliancy, the 

 fronds are nearly all uniform in size, and, instead of standing in an erect 

 position, all the fertile ones partake more or less of the decumbent or 

 spreading character which, in the typical plant, is peculiar to the barren 

 fronds, forming a plant of compact growth and habit similar to the several 

 known crested, but green, forms of this essentially decorative Pern. 



Again, there is the beautifully -coloured Pteris Uaurita nemoralis variegata, 

 whose fronds attain large dimensions, and are rendered highly attractive by 

 the centre of each pinna being of a bright pinkish colour, gradually, however, 

 fading into white, a tint which it retains as long as the fronds remain on the 

 plant. Somewhat in the same way, but with foliage adorned with colours 

 of extreme brilliancy, is P. quadriaurita tricolor, an East Indian variety 

 somewhat difficult to manage. It is only now and then that we hear of 

 someone having succeeded in growing it to perfection, and in most cases this 

 happens seemingly without anything special in the way of cultivation : its 

 well-being evidently depends more on local or climatic influences than on 

 skilful treatment. As a proof of this, it may be stated that in some places, 

 where formerly this lovely Fern was thriving, it will now hardly grow, in 

 spite of unchanged treatment ; whereas, in other places, where for years it 

 only contrived to exist, it occasionally makes a sudden burst and for a certain 

 time grows apace. One practically successful instance came under our notice 

 in 1867, when, to our great astonishment, we saw, at Loisy, near Vitry-le- 

 Francais, in the east of France, planted in a camellia-bed, in the greenhouse, 



