Chap. II.] 



THE PARC MONCEAU. 



21 



of garden-decoration, which simply means the nse in gardens 

 of plants having large leaves, picturesque hahit, or graceful 

 port, has taught us the value of grace and verdure amid masses 

 of low, brilliant, and unrelieved flowers, and has reminded us 

 how far we have diverged from Nature's ways of displaying 

 the beauty of vegetation. Our love for rude colour led us too 

 often to ignore the exquisite and inexhaustible way in which 

 plants are naturally arranged. In a wild state flowers are usually 



SKETCH IN THE PARC MONCEAU. 



relieved by a setting of abundant greeii ; and even where moun- 

 tain and meadow plants of a few kinds produce a wide blaze of 

 colour at one season, there is intermingled a spray of pointed 

 grass and other leaves, which tone down the mass and quite sepa- 

 rate it from anything shown by what is called the "bedding 

 system " in gardens. When we come to examine the most pleas- 

 ing examples of our own indigenous or any other wild vegetation, 

 we find that their attraction mainly depends on flower and fern, 



