Chapter X 

 HOW TO TREAT CUT FLOWERS 



Flowers Require Intelligent First Aid 



IN order to take intelligent care of cut flowers and 

 keep them fresh as long as possible, it is necessary 

 to realize that they are still parts of living plants and 

 not pieces of ribbon cut from a roll or other inanimate 

 articles used for decoration. No phase of animal 

 life of course is quite parallel to the status of cut 

 flowers; nevertheless, it is well to think of them as 

 living things that have been wounded and mutilated, 

 and that from the moment they are severed from the 

 plant require prompt and intelhgent "first aid." The 

 function of perspiration, or evaporation, before re- 

 ferred to as inherent to the leaves on the plant, still 

 continues after the stem, with leaves and flower at- 

 tached, has been cut. The numberless channels that 

 have been conducting nourishment to them from the 

 roots are severed and wilting quickly takes place. 

 More disastrous still to the future of the cut flower is 

 the rapid closing and shriveling of the ends of the 

 small tubes where severed, if allowed to remain out 

 of water any length of time. All of these conditions 

 are aggravated by heat and a dry atmosphere, and 

 together are the causes of the rapid destruction of 

 cut flowers when they are carelessly handled. Many 

 close students of the subject assert that a distinct 

 shock to the cut flowers takes place on amputation, 

 which causes the closing of the tubes unless plunged 



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