Dinner-Table Decorations. 23 
be of an obtrusive colour, should complete the harmony of purple and 
soft yellow. 
With reference to the fourth plan, represented at the head of this chapter, a 
charming effect can be produced by the use of berries and winter foliage for 
table decorations. There will be seen a centre-piece filled with small branches 
of the Scarlet-fruiting Barberry (B. vulgaris ), the rich, glaucous purple fruit 
of the Holly-leaved Barberry (Mahonia aquifolia ), the brilliant orange-red 
capsules of the Winter Cherry (Physalis Alkekengi ), and the fairy-like silvery 
placentas of the pods of the Honesty (Lunaria biennis ), with a sprig or two of 
the yellow winter jasmine and a few blooms of the Christmas rose inter¬ 
spersed between them. From the centre-piece to the four candelabra hang 
festoons of ivy, and under these are two ornaments filled with Christmas 
roses, small sprigs of ivy berries, and barberry fruit. Around all is a border 
of rich, bronzy-tinted ivy, and a tall glass in each corner filled with sprays 
of solanumand barberry berries, and flowers of winter jasmine and Christmas 
rose. At each corner and in the middle of each side, just outside the ivy 
edging, a few sprays of mahonia leaves, barberry and solanum berries, and 
blooms of Christmas rose are tastefully arranged. The warm, glowing colours 
of the berries and the rich bronzy tints of the foliage combined, render such 
an arrangement exceedingly effective when the room is lighted up in the 
evening. There are plenty of such materials to be obtained. In addition 
to those mentioned, there are holly berries, also berries of the Evergeen Fire- 
thorn (Cratcegus pyracantha ), and Sea Buckthorn (.Hippophce rhamnoides). 
These, with everlasting flowers and dried grasses, may with little taste be 
utilized with good effect for the decoration of the Christmas dinner-table. 
The foregoing explanatory specimens of table decoration may, of course, be 
modified and varied endlessly; but it will always be found the best plan to use 
only two, or at the most three, kinds of blossom at the same time, with 
ample greenery. 
Those who live in the country will find a delightful task in supplying the 
table with exquisite flowering grasses, tinted oak, maple, and other leaves, 
sprays of delicious creamy meadow-sweet, and all manner of lovely wild 
flowers; while, fortunately for town dwellers, the craving for country delights 
has induced the flower-shops to lay in regular supplies of grasses and decorative 
items of many kinds from our lanes and hedges, which a few years ago would 
have been unsaleable commodities. 
Assuming that grasses, foliage, and cut flowers are not readily come-at-able 
