262 



CHAPTER XIII. 



THE PLANT DECORATION OP AFARTMENTS REFORM IN THE 



CONSERVATORY PALMS THE IVY AND ITS USES IN PARISIAN 



GARDENS. 



The plant decoration of apartments. 



The graceful custom of growing plants in living rooms is 

 very much more prevalent on the Continent than with us. 

 It is true that we often see a display of flowering plants in 

 rooms, though we very rarely rise to the use of subjects 

 distinguished by beauty of form, or select those that are 

 peculiarly adapted for culture indoors. But the day is ap- 

 proaching when the value of graceful plants as house orna- 

 ments will be very fully recognised ; and that the substitution 

 of life and changeful interest for much that, however costly 

 or well executed, is without these qualities, will prove a gain 

 few will doubt. Apart altogether from their effect as orna- 

 ments, what can more agreeably introduce us to the study 

 of natural history ? The influence of the graceful form of 

 a young Palm in the hall, the fascinating verdure of Ferns 

 and fine-leaved plants from many countries in the drawing- 

 room, and flowers, from the Orchids of the uplands of 

 Mexico to the tiny bulbs of Europe, in your Lilliputian 

 room-conservatory, is surely more eloquent in that direction 

 than any book teachings. You cannot deny, as Kingsley 

 says, that your daughters " find an enjoyment in it, and are 

 more active, more cheerful, more self-forgetful over it, than 

 they would have been over novels and gossip, crochet and 

 Berlin wool. At least you will confess that the abomination 

 of ' fancy work' — that standing cloak for dreamy idleness 

 (not to mention the injury it does to poor starving needle- 

 women) — has all but vanished from your drawing-room 



