Quarter Centetmial A.nnh'ersary of Am. Tomotogical Society. 291 



ard, being marked with the most exquisite colors. Around both lower and upper hall 

 and balconies, these floral treasures were spread — while hanging baskets stood with 

 ornamented plants, and smilax drooping everywhere produced a scene of enchantment. 

 Nearly all the largest florists were represented by displays of choice plants, while 

 the ladies were no less backward in submitting floral designs of bouquets, wreaths 

 and similar decorations. Near the Organ appeared two very large vases, filled with 

 a profusion of delicate flowers and drooping vines, and the periphery of the stage was 

 decorated in a graceful manner, with plants on stands, or glasses, which almost hid its 

 surface from the view. 



Probably no scene was ever held in Boston or even in any other city of the 

 country, combining so much truly artistic as this. A poetic correspondent of the 

 Boston Post, writing of the romantic suggestions of the scene, says: 



Beethoven has looked down with bronze benignity on many a gay scene in the 

 Music Hall, but he has surely never seen anything more brilliant and beautiful than 

 the present floral display. Fancy fairs, with their bravery of coloring and artistic 

 taste of decoration, pale altogether before this wonderful exhibition, and bazars 

 seemed stripped of half their fascination. Luxuriance of foliage and depth and 

 intensity of color fill the place. In the center of the Hall are tall palms, and sur- 

 rounding them, wonderful tropical ferns, tree-shaped and huge, and foliage plants 

 of all descriptions and kinds. The greens vary from the cypress to the palest tints 

 that are scarcely more than white. Now and then, shining out of the surrounding 

 green, a bunch of blood-red foliage shows itself, some gigantic member of the Coleus 

 family, put on exhibition for its size and beauty. How it overshadows the memory 

 of your plant at home that has been your pride and boast, every red leaf that 

 showed itself cared for more tenderly than the last. Your plant is like a dwarf 

 beside this giant ; but after all, it is beautiful still and your own ; there is much in 

 that knowledge to reconcile you, Rustic baskets of ivy and other twining plants 

 stand in unexpected places, and trail their greenness down even over the dark floor. 

 Against the sides of the hall are arranged the flowers, a mass of brilliant autumn 

 coloring. Purple asters and self-assertive yellow dahlias, are ranged in queer con- 

 fusion. Spikes of red and white phlox, looking as familiar as if they were fresh 

 from a well remembered country garden, are in no wise dismayed to find themselves 

 side by side with perfumed lilies, whose satin white petals are flecked with crimson 

 stains ; the heart's blood of the dying summer spilt on the blossoms of her latest, 

 sweetest plant. Gladiolus make banks of brilliant beauty, ranged along the foot of 

 the first balcony, and are a gay background for the green plants in front of them. 

 The platform is filled with tables holding choice bouquets and table designs, in 

 which were tube roses, their perfume striking through every other odor, until the 

 air was languid with its richness ; carnations and purple heliotrope, delicate tea 

 roses with petals as exquisitely tinted as seashells, and a delicate perfume that was 

 rather a suggestion of odor than odor itself, shy mignonette, and with it all the 

 fairylike green of the smilax, or the deeper tint of some other foliage. At the back 

 of the tables were pots of New England ferns, all the varieties that are found in our 

 woods ; still holding, even in their exile, something of the pungent fragrance that 

 characterized them in their home by some mountain brook, or down in the quiet, 



