114 Floral 'Decoration of Apartments in Paris. 



a great number of blooms were added for the night without touch- 

 ing a wood- bud of the specimens upon which they grew. 



These arrangements are infinitely varied at the great balls, both 

 public and private ; rocks, water grottoes, &c., are occasionally intro- 

 duced, and very extensive arrangements sometimes made in the open 

 air, in the gardens behind the great houses, &c. The TuUeries 

 Gardens at the time of the great fetes were largely decorated 

 in this way, each of the numerous lamp-posts having a bed of 

 flowers around it, and the whole scene being turned into a flower 

 garden in a few days. The quantity of flowers required to do this 

 was something enormous, and when it is considered that at the 

 same time great quantities of plants were arranged, both indoors 

 and out, in other great public and private buildings, some faint idea 

 may be formed of the enormous extent to which the plant deco- 

 ration is carried out in Paris. To go more fully into details would 

 be useless — very few words serve to explain the difference between 

 their and our system of decorating with plants. It simply consists 

 in the use of a far greater number of fine-leaved subjects on their 

 part. This, of course, has a great effect in popularizing the use of 

 plants in houses, for how can you make beautiful arrangements in 

 this way if you ignore the higher beauties of plant form ? The 

 fashion as carried out in such instances as the above carries its in- 

 fluences through every grade of society. Thus you see people 

 with a graceful Yucca or young Palm, or New Zealand Flax, in 

 their windows and rooms, who, if in England, would not, in all 

 probability, have had a distinct idea of the existence of such 

 things. The extent to which this taste for floral decorations in the 

 H6tel de Ville is carried, may be judged from the enormous number 

 of plants grown at Passy for that purpose — the New Zealand Flax 

 which is so very useful for indoor or outdoor decoration being 

 grown to the extent of upwards of 10,000 plants, and Palms 

 and all plants with fine leaves in great quantity. The demand 

 for use in private houses gives rise to a large and special branch 

 of trade in many of the nurseries — one Versailles cultivator 

 annually selling ^000 or 6000 plants of Dracaena terminalis alone. 



