THE FERN DISH 



Fig. 2788. The Fkrn Dish. 



THE fern dish is the finishing touch cf 

 elegance to the simplest table. Have 

 you not many times admired the center piece 

 (upon some luncheon table) consisting of a 

 fern dish set in a silver filagree jardiniere 

 and wished with all your heart you could af- 

 ford such a dainty accessory to your own 

 table? Indeed, yes. But the prohibitive 

 ])rice asked at a florist's has made many of 

 us resign all idea of possessing one. It 

 isn't really the silver which attracts our at- 

 tention. There may be many other silver 

 articles on the board. It is the green things 

 growing, airily, bewitchingly before us, and 

 while the silver may set oflf the green tracery 

 of leaf and stem, yet other material could be 

 used to decorate the plainness of the dish. 



So I set to work. T bought a fern dish, 

 simply a flower pot, broad and shallow. To 

 the woods I went, bringing home leaf mold, 

 and a root of Maidenhair fern, called Crow's 

 foot. It has five fingers on its black stems. 

 The mold had a handful of sand mixed with 

 it and the fern was tucked carefully in the 

 dish. That was the beginning. T then 



rooted a flowering begonia, Argentea gut- 

 tata, and put that in the dish. The object 

 in a fern dish is to have small plants. When 

 they grow large the fern dish can not be 

 used for a center piece. Beside the begonia 

 went a cyclamen bulb, raised from seed, and 

 then a couple of other wood ferns, the cof- 

 fee fern, and the gold back, both small deli- 

 cate ferns, native in California. This was 

 my first dish, but I learned the art of mak- 

 ing them up differently. Suppose^ you are 

 using eastern ferns which rest during the 

 winter. Do not put in flowering begonias, 

 but use gloxinias, achimenes, cyclamen, or 

 tuberous begonias, as these all rest during 

 the winter. When the dish is in full green- 

 ery and you desire to lise it on the table, 

 decorate it with tissue paper, or silk, the 

 color of your table decorations, and no one 

 will notice the absence of silver filagree. Do 

 not use reds or blues, but soft greens or 

 creams, or pale pinks or yellows, which will 

 harmonize with the greenery and not an- 

 tagonize. 



As the principal object of a fern dish is 

 ferns, I will name some pretty ones. There 

 is the Davidiana, which in time grows large, 

 but while small is very pretty in a fern dish. 

 The maidenhairs 'one and all belong to the 

 fern dish, in fact, I think the fern dish was 

 '' invented " especially to set off the maiden- 

 hairs. In California we have the gold back, 

 a maidenhair with the black stems and a 

 glittering back which looks as though dusted 

 with gold ; the coflfee fern, small round 

 leaves like coffee beans, both remaining 

 evergreen the year round, if kept watered. 

 The Pteris variegata has leaves margined 

 with white, and is ever green, and Nephro- 

 lepis Duffli is a very dainty small leaved 

 fern, nice for the fern dish. 



In making up fern dishes I aim to use 



