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THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



Ville, anything seen in the British Isles is poor indeed ; while the way plants are 

 arranged at the Linnean and Royal Societies, and other important places, on special 

 occasions, is almost sufficient to prevent people tolerating them indoors at all, and 

 yet the plants are much better grown in England than they are in France. The 

 difference is caused by exceedingly tasteful and frequently peculiar arrangement, 

 and by employing effective and graceful kinds. What the Parisians do as regards 

 arrangement may perhaps be best gleaned if, before selecting the kinds most de- 

 serving of indoor culture, I describe the decorations for one of the balls at the Hotel 

 de Ville. Entering the Salle St. Jean, the eye was immediately attracted by a 

 luxuriant mass of vegetation at one end ; while on the right and immediately round 

 a mirrored recess was a very tasteful and telling display made as follows : — In 



Dracaena terminals. 



front of the large and high minor stretched a bank of moss, common moss under, 

 neath, and the surface nicely formed of freth green Lycopodium denticulatum, the 

 whole being dotted over with the variously-tinted Chinese Primulas— a bank of 

 these plants, in fact, high enough in its back parts to be reflected in the mirror with 

 the taller plants which surrounded it, gradually falling to the floor, and merging 

 into the groups of larger plants on either side of the bank, the whole being enclosed 

 by a low gilt wooden trellis-work margin. The groups at each side contrasted most 

 beautifully with this. Green predominated, but there was a sufficiency of flower, 

 while beauty of form was fully developed. In the centre and back parts of these 

 groups were tall specimens of the common sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum) 

 which held their long and boldly arching leaves well over the group. These were 



