FLOWERS 
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means of green — foliage of course takes care 
of this — and pure blue to pure red by means 
of purple. This last even allows space for the 
shades of magenta; but only in small propor- 
tions even here can they be agreeable, and then 
they must be carefully selected, for often their 
color is muddy and ugly apart from its other 
unpleasant qualities. 
Such a progression should not be too ab- 
rupt, but should move in several steps when 
possible, from primary to secondary and 
thence to the succeeding primary. And then, 
supplementing this as a general guide, is the 
proportioned use of complementary colors. 
These are the pair of colors made up of any 
primary color in combination with the sec- 
ondary which does not contain it — as red and 
green, yellow and purple, blue and scarlet. 
Primary and secondary are said to be comple- 
mentary to each other because if united they 
would — theoretically — compose pure light, 
which we most nearly represent by white. Of 
course pigments themselves do not actually pro- 
duce white, because they are not pure vibrations 
of light, but that is another matter and does not 
concern us when we are dealing with a thing as 
tangible as flower colors. 
The three sets of complementary colors vary 
