Plate 4 
SILVER-VARIEGATED PTERIS, 
Pteris argyraa . 
This plant is interesting as being the first well-marked va¬ 
riegated Fern which found its way into our gardens. It is, 
moreover, a handsome and effective object, the broad well- 
defined conspicuous band or stripe of silvery-grey which runs 
along the centre of the pinnae, giving it a distinct and novel 
character by which it contrasts well with the ordinary forms of 
Ferns and other hothouse plants. Our principal figure is, of 
necessity, considerably reduced from the natural size. 
The plant forms a short erect caudex or stem, on which the 
bases of the fronds are just elevated above the ground-surface. 
The full-grown fronds are large, five feet or more in length, with 
long stoutish stipites or stalks, and they assume, as is common 
to many allied species, a gracefully arching form, spreading 
out on all sides. The stipites are clothed with scales near the 
base, and form about half the length of the frond, the other 
half consisting of the broad expanded leafy portion. This leafy 
part is ovate in outline, or somewhat pentangular from the 
development of two posterior branches, and in the full-grown 
plant measures about two and half feet across the base, and 
about the same in length from the top of the stipes to the 
point. In division, the fronds are what is technically termed 
pedately pinnate-pinnatifid: that is, they are first divided into 
distinct pinnae, which pinnae are again divided not quite down 
to their central rib into small contiguous divisions called seg- 
Jdlcite 4.—Pteris ABGYBiEA: fronds pedately pinnate-pinnatifid, segments 
bluntly linear-oblong, falcate (li inch long), spinulose on the racbides above, 
the terminal ones caudate, greyish-white along the base, forming a broad 
silvery stripe down the centre of the pinnte. 
P. (pyrophylla) abgyr.ea Moore, Gard. Citron. 1859, 671. 
