Plate 26. 
THREE-COLOURED PTERIS. 
Pteris faspericaulisj tricolor. 
We have already introduced to the notice of our readers a 
fine variegated Fem (see Plate 4), and now offer an illustration 
representing another beautiful variegated member of the same 
popular family. The former, being a large-growing subject, five 
or six feet in height, has been necessarily represented on a very 
reduced scale; but of our present subject, which is a dwarfish 
plant, the accompanying Plate shows the average size, and the 
colour as the newly formed frond is changing from red to green. 
This beautiful and charmingly-coloured Fern made its first 
appearance in the early part of the present year, having been 
sent from Brussels by M. Linden, its fortunate introducer, for 
exhibition at a meeting of the Horticultural Society’s Floral 
Committee, held in the month of February, on which occasion 
it was awarded a first-class certificate. It had been obtained 
by M. Linden from the Straits of Malacca. 
Some of our highest authorities in the nomenclature of Ferns 
have regarded our present subject and that figured under the 
name of P. argyrcea at Plate 4, as varieties of the common In¬ 
dian P. quadriaurita; but, at least for all the purposes of cul¬ 
tivation, the two plants are totally distinct. P. argyroea is com¬ 
paratively a giant, and forms a noble object, with its long, arch¬ 
ing, well-marked fronds, which are very much larger than the 
Plate 26.—Pteris (aspericaulis) tricolor : fronds dwarfish, pedately pin- 
nate-pinnatifid; segments narrow linear-oblong, blunt, somewhat falcate, 
crowded, the terminal one caudate; stipites and rachides purplish-red, the 
segments deep green marked with greyish-white at the base; sori linear mar¬ 
ginal. 
P. tricolor, Linden MS.; and in Hortus Lindenianus , t. 12. Moore, 
Gardeners' Chronicle, 1860, p. 217. 
P. quadriaurita, var. tricolor, Hooker, in Botanical Magazine, t. 5183. 
