AND ORNAMENTAL TREATMENT. 



DESCRIPTION OF THE PLATES. 



PLATE 1. 



" I shall be well pleased if I can say what is right, though it may not be of my own invention."— QuiNTILIAN. 



iN ornamental art, plants may be employed from various motives; thus, in some cases, 

 their beauty has evidently been the sole consideration in their selection, while, in others, 

 they have been chosen on account of an inner meaning involved. In the first case, the 

 art is aesthetic — beauty, for its own sake, as the end and aim ; in the second, it is 

 symbolic — the outward and visible form conveying to the spectator a deeper meaning than it 

 inherently possesses. The second is the nobler aim, as the pleasure to be derived from any work 

 of art will be in direct proportion to the thought embodied in it. Many plants have thus in past 

 art been used with this inner meaning ; the Egyptians, for instance, largely employed the Lotus, 

 the beautiful lily of their sacred Nile, in their ornament, as a symbol of plenty, since it was one of 

 the most striking plants of that river, whose annual overflow caused the fertility of the land, and 

 made Eg^pt the granary of the ancient world. The Vine is very commonly used throughout 

 Christian art, and more especially during the Byzantine period, in allusion to such passages as — 

 " I am the true Vine." The Palm branch of victory, the Lil)^, emblem of spotlessness of life, are 

 other examples ; and to those we may add the Snow-drop (of which we have a drawing in fig. 9), 

 since, in Roman Catholic countries, it is, together with the white garden Lily (Lilium Candiduni), 

 accepted as a symbol of the Virgin Mary, and hence is frequently found in ecclesiastical decora- 

 tion. In some countries it is customary, on the day kept by that Church as that of her ascension, 

 to remove her images from their altars, and to strew the spot with this flower. Apart from this 

 religious significance, the plant is well worthy of the prnamentist's regard from its delicacy of form 

 and colour ; and as the first sign of the awakening of Nature after the storms of winter, hence the 

 name Snow-drop, or, as the French term it, Perceneige — both names testifying to its early appear- 

 ance, while the generic name (Galanthus) is derived from two Greek words signifying milk flower. 



" Earliest bud that decks the garden. 

 Fairest of the fragrant race, 

 First-born child of vernal Flora, 

 Seeking wild thy lowly place." — Longthorne. 



Double flowers are frequently met with, even in its wild state ; the transition in these from the 

 normal forms of the stamen to the petal, and then on to the sepal, is very interesting. A floral 

 leaf, as large as a sepal, sometimes only shows its petaloid character by its notched apex, and 

 by a slight line or two of green on it, while others, more heart-shaped, smaller in size, and 

 more regularly striped with lines of green, approximate more nearly to the normal form of petal. 

 In others again, the rudiments of an anther are seen — the form thus produced being transitional 

 from stamen to petal, while more nearly in the centre of the flower the forms become truly 

 staminoid. Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, show this gradation very well, the lower figure being the 

 normal form of the stamen ; the upper, the normal form of sepal ; the others, the intermediate 

 forms, merging from the one to the other. Fig. 1 2 is a detached sepal, fig. 1 3, a petal, while figs. 

 10 and 1 1 are the interior and exterior views of the natural single flower, as a whole. 



The sepals in the Snow-drop are pure white ; the petals white, having on the exterior a 

 spot of brilliant green, and the interior striped with the same colour, while the anthers are brilliant 

 orange. Where the plant is met with at all it is generally abundant, growing in clumps, the roots 

 of several plants all matted together, and requiring some little force to separate them. In most 

 flowers the calyx is green, and of smaller size than the corolla, as in the rose, buttercup, borage ; 

 but there are numerous exceptions, thus in the present plant it is white, and the segments longer 

 than those of the inner ring; in the Anemone Pulsatilla, light purple ; in the Delphinium Ajacis, 

 intensely deep and pure blue ; in the Caltha palustris, brilliant yellow. 



Where the petals and sepals are similar in colour and form, the term perianth is applied to 

 them collectively, though, as there is generally some slight difference perceptible, the term is not 

 always employed — one botanist describing the parts as a perianth, another recognising corolla 

 and calyx. The flower of the Snow-drop is generally described as a perianth, but the Tulip flower 

 (fig. 14) is a still better example. In some flowers, as for instance Orchids, some one or more of 

 the segments, though the same in colour, differ in form from the others ; such form of perianth is. 



