Jannary 20, 1876 ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTDRE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



47 



WEEKLY CALENDAR. 



EPIPHYLLUM3— TABLE DECORATIONS.— No. 1. 



i ATE in autumn, .also throughout tho ■winter, 

 these are amongst the gayest and most useful 

 of decorative flowering plants. Then- grace- 

 ful pendant habit, combined with flowers 

 mostly shades of red, with purple or violet 

 shading and white throats, produced from 

 the points of the arching shoots, and being 

 very floriferoue, render tliem particularly 

 ornamental, especially when viewed by arti- 

 ficial light. 



Need we be surprised that in the usual brilUancy of 

 rooms by lights, mirrors, &3 , contrasting objects are 

 introduced to give tone — often intentionally higher tone, 

 but in reality subduing, rendering more agreeable the 

 objects that without such rest for the eye would, after 

 a first impression, be oppressive ? Plants upon a dining- 

 table, or vases, &c., of flowers with the indispensable 

 sprays of green foliage are to the guests what an oiisis 

 is to the traverser of a desert, or the relief found in the 

 evergreens when the ground is covered with snow. In 

 that sense, and that only, caiU I see the fitness of plants 

 or flowers for dinner-table decoration ; they are employed 

 to ornament, and at the same time subdue, and render 

 more agreeable the brilliancy of their settings. 



Light and shiny substances have the greatest foil in 

 black, but the contrast is not pleasing. Dark objects 

 become in the distance apparently blue, as that of the sea 

 and sky, which makes a ship with sails unfurled so pro- 

 minent an object on the water. But if we multiply the 

 ship into a fleet of ships its individuality and distinctness 

 is absorbed into the mass of white. It is the same with 

 plants and flowers. Pretty, indeed, all flowers are, but if 

 embedded in dining-tables to represent a parterre their 

 individual beauties are frittered away. Plants employed 

 in table decorations to be effective must have their in- 

 dividual forms preserved, whUe their arrangement must 

 be in harmony with their surroundings. 



If the articles upon the table be massive, to arrange the 

 plants or flowers massively, or so as to appear so, is still to 

 render the whole more heavy ; whilst to have light plants 

 or flowers lightly arranged is to make mora prominently 

 massive their heavier surroundings, and yet this is the 

 most pleasing combination ; for when the objects are 

 few and massive the plants which are to relievo them 

 must be few in number, graceful, aud elegant, for in this 

 as in everything else beauty is not to be sought by add- 

 ing to what is possessed in full by an object, but what 

 is wanted is a " finish," which in most instances is found 

 in diametrically opposed forms ; for what so beautiful as 

 the tree or shrub of graceful habit viewed across a breadth 

 of closely-mown verdant lawn, or the spray of a Willow 

 whipping the waters of a lake? 



Flat surfaces are not tastefully decorated by low plants, 

 and stiff formal objects have not fitting contrasts in the 

 stifl" and erect habit of trees. To plant a valley with tall 

 trees is to convert it, so far as trees can do so, into a plain, 

 making a level of a hollow, destroying those undulations 



No. 778.— Vol. XXX., New Semes. 



of surface which are so pleasing in the landscape ; whilst 

 to plant a hill with Piues is not only to make an object a 

 feature in the landscape, but to make the hill higher and 

 the hollows appear deeper. 



It is the same even with the dinner-table as with 

 other decorations, admitting of many combinations, and 

 into which will creep incongruous innovations, not the 

 least being that of converting the table into mimic 

 flower beds cut in the cloth, with lead forms let into the 

 table, the forms raised of clay and filled with flowers, 

 than which nothing can bo in worse taste. Flat aud 

 formal arrangements of flowers such as that can only be 

 compared to the offering of prizes at rural flower shows 

 for designs for villa gardens, which though exhibiting 

 much ingenuity are at best toys, and further no purpose 

 but that of mimicing the real and frustrating any ad- 

 vance in useful horticulture. 



It has already been stated that the greatest contrast to 

 white is black ; bright shining substances, however, are 

 intensified, not in contrast with black, but are most bril- 

 liant upon a white ground- the white heightening the 

 tone of that to which it is contiguous, but the black from 

 the effect of the white light is more or less destroyed by 

 the reflection by the black of the light of the white. All 

 the primary colours — red, yellow, and blue of painters 

 (which are not those of the prismatic spectrum) — gain by 

 their juxtaposition with white, and when white surfaces 

 are viewed simultaneously with coloured objects con- 

 tiguous to them they are sensibly modified. 



White heightens light tones of any colour, and pos- 

 sesses the advantage of separating those whose colours 

 are mutually injurious : hence the green of plants is the 

 greatest relief to the eye from the whiteness and bright- 

 ness of a dining-table ; but it must not be supposed from 

 that that they are the most effective. Beautiful as are 

 the finely-divided fronds and gracefulness of Ferns, or 

 the more stately yet elegant (and glaucous in some in- 

 stances) forms of Palms, they are not so effective as if 

 the plants employed combine red with green, as instance 

 the coral berries of Nertera depressa on moss-like foliage, 

 the berries of the Holly when the ground is snow-clad, 

 and the scarlet bracts of Poinsettia puleherrima ; the 

 same applies to drooping or to erect forms, the red 

 being beneath or associated with the green, as Kussellia 

 juncea, Thyrsacanthus rutilans, or Epiphyllums; also in 

 combination with green, as in some Dracsnas, the bright 

 pink of the young fronds of some Ferns, as Lomarias, 

 being very telling when the plmts have deep green 

 fronds as well. Green and yellow, as that of Croton 

 Johannis, are not so effective as tho3o of Croton undu- 

 latum, which in the mature state has crimson markings, 

 and the same remarks apply to Dracaenas. Those having 

 beauty in the highest degree are those combining red 

 with green, though in some, as D. amabihs, the grjen, 

 white, and pink are presented in the fohage, which is 

 very pleasing. 



Plants with white stripes in the centre or the variegation 

 disposed on the margin of the leaves accord well, but silvery- 

 leaved i)lants, as a rule, are not effective ; yet plants with a 



No. 1125.— Vol. LV., Old Sebieb. 



