338 THE FLORIST. 
Parliament acted wisely in, responding. to Sir W.. Hooker’s earnest 
solicitation for a suitable building, by voting the sums necessary to 
erect what is to be the winter garden, and which, when complete, will 
be a most magnificent structure. It is being erected to the right of the 
green avenue, looking from the Palm house towards the Pagoda., « 
The ornamental water which is being formed near the Thames is 
yet unfinished, and we were surprised to hear that when full the water 
will be 4 or 5 feet below the level of the surrounding ground. As we 
presume it will have to be filled from the Thames, the water cannot 
perhaps be got to rise higher, but then it would haye ; been, better to 
have lowered the ground adjoining to nearly the level of the water ; 
at least such is my idea on the subject, : af a 
VARIEGATED FERNS. 
For several years past there has been an ever increasing love for 
Ferns and for beautifully-coloured leaved plants in the horticultural 
world, and it would seem that the same rule obtains in this, as in the 
commercial world, namely, that the supply corresponds with the demand. 
Until the last three years few among us would have expected to have 
seen variegated Ferns; it is, perhaps, the last family of plants in 
which we should have anticipated it, and yet we have now. three very 
distinct species most beautifully coloured, and there are vague and 
mysterious whisperings floating about hinting that these will not be-all 
ina few years time. ‘The first. variegated Fern which appeared in 
the field was Mr. Veitch’s Pteris argyrea; the still more brilliantly- 
coloured Pteris tricolor came the following spring from the celebrated 
garden of M. Linden of Brussels; and then the third species, Pteris cretica 
albo-lineata, was introduced to the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew, from 
the mountains of Java. Mr. Stansfield, the well-known Fern nursery- 
man of Todmorden, informed us a short time since that, while making 
a botanical excursion with his friend, Mr. Eastwood, the latter had 
discovered a patch of the common Brake so beautifully and distinctly 
variegated that it had the appearance of being sprinkled with snow. 
Itis very extraordinary that all the variegated Ferns yet discovered 
belong to the same genus, Pteris, and that the variegation is no mere 
accidental marking (as sometimes occurs in Asplenium adiantum 
nigrum) is proved by the gratifying fact) that’ the plants all come 
perfectly true from. spores. So far as our experience goes, not one of 
these variegated Ferns has, in a single instance, gone back to the green 
state which we must theoretically consider their original condition. _ 
Pteris argyrea is, no doubt, a variegated variety of Pt. quadriaurita ; 
its fronds attain a height of five feet (inclusive of the stipes), which 
causes it to haye an imposing appearance entirely distinct from the 
other two species; it is anative of central India. The fronds are, when _ 
full grown, about two-and-a-half feet long, pinnate with the pinne 
deeply pinnatifid; the two basal pine produce two or four branches 
from the lower side—these are pinnatifid like the pinne; the second 
