CONSTRUCTION OF BOUQUETS, ETC. 337 



The fashion in flowers and the mode of constructing 

 designs now varies considerably, and I will endeavor to 

 state wherein that difference now mainly exists. Since 

 the rage for Rocss began a dozen years ago, it is safe to 

 say that nine-tenths of the whole bulk of flowers used are 

 Roses. These are largely used in making up bouquets, 

 baskets, and all kinds of floral ornaments for the table, 

 and in a majority these are made exclusively of Roses ; 

 while corsage bouquets (little else is used in winter) often 

 contain as many as two dozen Roses of one color. At 

 present in the fall and early winter months the Chrys- 

 anthemums are perhaps used to a greater extent than 

 any other flower. In the months of November and 

 December nearly every other well dressed lady to be met 

 with on the fashionable streets of New York, is found 

 wearing a corsage bouquet of Chrysanthemums, and 

 from their great range of color, almost every shade of 

 dress can be matched except blue. 



All Roses now are used with long stems ; in fact since 

 the use of loose bunches of flowers has come in vogue, 

 replacing to a gi-eat extent the formal bouquets and 

 baskets, flowers of noarly all kinds that can be cut with 

 long stems are so gathered. One of the present fashions 

 of using flowers for decorating rooms is to select colors 

 of flowers to match the furniture ; thus if the furniture 

 is pink, the flowers used are as far as possible of that 

 color ; if of orange or yellow, flowers of yellowish tints are 

 used ; ii of crimson, the flowers as near to that color as 

 possibb aro employed, and so on. 



A beautiful style of wreath for funeral work is formed 

 from the pressed leaves of the Imperial Silver-tree (Lcu- 

 codendron argenteum), which many of the enterprising 

 florists are now importing. The leaves when pressed and 

 dried glisten like silver, and form a most graceful circlet 

 or wreath. There have been some attempts made, I 

 believe, to grow the plant here, but as its leaves are valu- 



