616 



The Weekly Florists^ Review. 



MAY 18, 1899. 



milder climate no doubt improves the 

 coloring. 



As I liave never seen anything men- 

 tioned of its somewhat obscure origin, 

 I might mention that N. Victoria is 

 of Dutch descent. In 18S3 a collection 

 of seedling narcissi raised by the late 

 Mr. Veen, of Haarlem, were sold by 

 auction, and a small lot of this va- 

 riety, consisting of two or three bulbs 

 only, and others were bought by the 

 firm of P. Vos & Co., of Sassenheim. 

 On account of its rapid propagation 



N. Victoria soon increased, forming a 

 considerable stock. This firm, how- 

 ever, was obliged to part with some of 

 its stock as early as 1896, and the va- 

 riety was the same year introduced 

 into this country by Mr. T. S. Ware, 

 of Tottenham, and Messrs. Barr & 

 Sons, Covent Garden, and has since 

 been distributed by them. N. Victoria, 

 having received everywhere the high- 

 est honors, it has become a general 

 favorite. — G. Reuthe, in Gardeners' 

 Magazine. 



Window Decorations. 



We have often been requested to de- 

 scribe the "Broadway windows," and 

 wishing to oblige we have carefully 

 studied these windows for the past two 

 weeks, and we must frankly inform 

 you that with a few exceptions you 

 could find just as good or better dis- 

 plays in some small western city. Of 

 course this is not always the case, for 

 when flowers are most expensive that 

 is the time the Broadway florists 

 shine. For some reason or other, at 

 this time of the year when all kinds of 

 material are ridiculously cheap, they 

 seem to be indifferent, and consequent- 

 ly very slovenly window displays are 

 the rule. Don't adopt this fashion if 

 your name's above the door; keep the 

 window clean and pretty, even though 

 you're but a village florist. 



But let us describe these windows. 

 Between 19th and 34th streets is the 

 florists' district on Broadway, New 

 York, and there are nine of them lo- 

 cated there. Butler's window is usual- 

 ly a mixed window, young salable pot 

 plants and vases of cut flowers inter- 

 mixed. Brower's window most of the 

 time is filled with small vases of old 

 fashioned flowers, and whatever floral 

 novelties are to be got on the market. 

 Fleischman is spectacular, eccentric, 

 artistic or nothing; he is making a 

 specialty of dwarf Japanese trees. In 

 one of his windows is shown one of the 

 prettiest arrangements to be seen on 

 Broadway; it is a number of small 

 enamel finger vases arranged in pyra- 

 mid form on a delicate bronzed wire 

 stand; the vases are filled with Cattle- 

 ya Mossiae, sometimes anthuriums or 

 a collection of orchids, but It Is always 



I pretty. Still something behind it that 

 not alone kills the effect but demoral- 

 izes everything about the beautiful 

 store, is a vase of artificial carnations 

 supposed to imitate, caricature, or 

 something, the "Lawson" carnation. 

 But Pleischman's artificial carnations 

 are the size of paeonies and you will 

 agree with me that when a man can- 

 not find natural fiowers good enough 

 for him or his trade then he ought to 

 go into the artificial business. But the 

 "Lawson" carnation is responsible for 

 lots of things; perhaps this is the 

 worst. 



Small's windows are sometimes pret- 

 ty. The bottoms are green tiled and 

 it requires very little to make an ef- 

 fective window. One of these windows 

 just now is occupied with a circular 

 mound of Adiantum cuneatum and 

 very beautiful it looks. The other win- 

 dow is filled with special carnations or 

 parrot tulips; these, however, are ar- 

 ranged scatteringly and we think 

 much of their beauty is lost. Thorley's 

 large window is filled with fine kent- 

 ias, a row of hydrangeas or other flow- 

 ering plants run along the bottom. 

 The small windows, the ones he first 

 started with, contain one or two vases 

 of Beauties or spring blossoms, noth- 

 ing special. Warendorf has a mixed 

 window; wreaths of red immortelles 

 hang on the side mirror, a monkey 

 made of Davallia bullata is suspended 

 in the center of the window. Here also 

 the artificial "Lawson" carnation can 

 sometimes be seen. The window is 

 mostly filled with mixed vases of 

 fiowers and small pot plants. Scallen 

 usually shows very fine flowers, which 

 are arranged in hanging vases. One of 

 his windows is fllled with plants. 



Bridgeman's, or rather Moulton's, con- 

 tains about a dozen vases of miscella- 

 neous flowers. 



This has been the condition of the 

 Broadway windows for the past two 

 weeks. Very rarely made up designs 

 are shown. The stores are always clean 

 and bright and brilliantly lighted at 

 night, but in very few of them are the 

 occupants even commonly civil to 

 trade visitors (which many of you al- 

 ready know) and it's not that they are 

 any better than the men on the Bow- 

 ery, no, my friends, it's their ignorance 

 or arrogance, whichever you wish to 

 style it. 



Funeral Designs. 



Last week we discussed weddings, 

 this time by way of variety we will 

 deal with funeral design/;. There have 

 been some very prominent funerals in 

 New York lately and the flowers sent 

 were calculated to represent the art 

 and wealth of this city. Well, we 

 know tremendous prices were paid for 

 some of the designs, and some of the 

 pieces were pretty. 



Thorley had charge of the flowers at 

 the funeral of the late Mrs. W. C. 

 Whitney, wife of the ex-Secretary cf 

 the Navy. The funeral took place at 

 the Cathedral, Garden City, L. I., on 

 May 9th. Interment was at Douglas- 

 ton, L. I. There were no decorations 

 at the Cathedral other than those of 

 arranging the designs sent, excepting 

 that the casket rested between two 

 groups of tall kentias, which were 

 placed in the chancel. The casket was 

 completely hidden beneath a casket 

 cover made of several hundred Cat- 

 tleya Mossiae, which were solidly ar- 

 ranged facing upwards on top; the 

 outer edge of the cover was a fringe 

 of lily of the valley. Several small 

 wreaths made of one variety of flower 

 were suspended at the sides of the 

 casket; these represented the difiierent 

 members of the family. The cover 

 was a little too large, otherwise it was 

 well done. There was nothing new in 

 the designs sent. One large standing 

 cross made of brown galax leaves and 

 Lilium Harrisii would have been all 

 right if the moss had not shown 

 through the galax. Another large flat 

 cross was made of apple blossoms 

 which faded very quickly. 



Large flat bunches of American 

 Beauty roses were plentiful; one of 

 them was tied with streamers of pea 

 green gauze ribbon, which was very 

 bad taste. One wreath was composed 

 of mixed colored pansies, a cluster of 

 yellow corn flowers (Centaurea Macro- 

 cephala) being placed at the bottom 

 of the wreath; it was a bad arrange- 

 ment; the corn flowers were too bril- 

 liant for funeral work. Just imagine 

 that wreath made over again by put- 

 ting the pansies on fine wire so they 

 would face up; then green the wreath 

 well, get all the dark pansies together, 

 then the white, then the yellow, after- 

 wards the bronze, or try a wreath of 

 exclusively dark pansies with a cluster 

 of valley; but the wreath must be well 

 rounded. Another wreath was made 



