This section is from "The Horticulturist, And Journal Of Rural Art And Rural Taste", by P. Barry, A. J. Downing, J. Jay Smith, Peter B. Mead, F. W. Woodward, Henry T. Williams. Also available from Amazon: Horticulturist and Journal of Rural Art and Rural Taste.
A lovely, dwarf-growing stove perennial, belonging to the front rank of plants, with ornamental foliage. The leaf stalks are slender, erect, of a dull, reddish purple, and support an ovate blade, somewhat unequal sided, about 6 inches long, and 4½ inches broad, most charmingly colored. The margin and the oblong marking are of a very dark, bottle-green color, while the whole intervening space is semi-transparent, cream-colored, or of a greenish, straw color, and traversed by the veins, which form narrow, divergent, dark-green lines, between which the pallid surface appears as if minutely striate; when closely examined, however, it is found to be barred transversely with minute, green lines, producing, under a magnifying glass, the appearance of being cancellate, like the Ouviranda. This pale center of the leaf, on each side the midrib, is ornamented by oblong, often stipi-late blotches, of a deep, full green, and from one to two inches long; the larger and smaller marking frequently alternating. The under surface is a wine red, deeper opposite the darker marking of the upper surface, It may be generally described as a miniature of such plants as M. Veitchii and M. Lindenii, but is even more beautiful than those fine kinds.- William Bull.
 
Continue to: