62 
House & Garden 
In the Heart of the Home 
There's a charming beauty and 
an assurance of comfort in this 
cozy setting. Well chosen reading 
lamps at once impart a distinctive 
atmosphere to the room. 
Ask for the Read-Right Booklet. 
At good furniture stores 
and interior decorators 
Maxwell-Ray company 
411 Milwaukee St. 25 W. 45th Street 
Milwaukee, Wis. New York City 
FACTORY AT MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 
Bouquets the Winter Through 
(Continued from page 60) 
are so distinctive, each surrounded by 
long clawlike bracts extending above it 
that but few are needed for use with 
brown compass leaves or in a slender 
vase alone. 
Teazel is interesting in its natural tan 
color which tones well with both warm 
grays and browns or it may be tinted to 
harmonize with vase or background by 
painting it with oil colors thinned with 
turpentine. The teazel illustrated is col¬ 
ored a soft orange which blends beauti¬ 
fully with its Tiffany vase of iridescent 
golden tones. One sometimes sees in 
florists’ windows teazels dyed in abomi¬ 
nable purples and magentas which are 
impossibilities in almost any scheme of 
decoration. 
The Decorative Vines 
Of vines, several species bear fruit use¬ 
ful for winter ornaments, probably the 
best known being bittersweet, gathered 
so universally for many years. This 
vine, trailing over wayside fences and 
climbing woodland trees, may be recog¬ 
nized in early summer by its small green¬ 
ish white flowers in terminal racemes. 
In October, these have become clusters 
of bright orange, berry-like capsules 
which, when brought into the house 
warmth, burst open and curl back, dis¬ 
closing the red berries within. These 
berries keep their color for several years, 
being freed from dust by occasional 
baths. Indeed, most dried fruit and flora 
may be freshened by dipping gently into 
water. Spreading sprays of bittersweet 
in a low bowl make an attractive bou¬ 
quet or it is pretty used with the brown 
sheep sorrel seed spikes. 
One of the most beautifully fruited 
vines bears the malodorous name of 
carrion-flower because of the offensive 
scent of its small yellow blossoms. Be¬ 
longing to the smilax family and cousin 
to the trillium, it has been reviled by all 
naturalists. Thoreau compared its odor 
to that of “a dead rat in a wall.” But 
in late September or October, after a 
frost, it is well worth hunting for along 
river banks and in thickets, for happily 
its blue black berries, closely clustered, 
thirty or more of them in a ball, are en¬ 
tirely free from any odor and make a 
charming decoration where hanging vines 
are desirable. 
Another vine of ill repute is the poison 
or three-leaved ivy, trailing its treach¬ 
erous length all too commonly upon 
tree trunks and through tall grasses, 
even appearing sometimes in a shrublike 
growth. Its loose clusters of greenish 
white flowers are followed by tiny gray- 
white berries which persist into the cold 
weather. These berries are not of the 
poisonous nature of the leaves for they 
form the winter food of many birds. 
When the leaves have fallen, the berries 
on their brown twiggy stems have a de¬ 
cidedly Japanesque value. A loose clus¬ 
ter in an Oriental brass bowl was one of 
the most beautiful subjects in a recent 
exhibition. 
There are many shrubs whose decora¬ 
tive berries remain on the plant through¬ 
out the winter but which, when brought 
indoors, shrivel and fall, making them 
valueless as material for winter bou¬ 
quets- 
Bayberry and Straw Flowers 
Bayberry, waxberry or wax myrtle, 
as it is variously named, botanically, 
myrica, is an exception, for its berries 
may be kept for a long time after pick¬ 
ing. Abundant in thickets and gardens 
of New England, the bayberry is less 
common in other parts of the United 
States. Its crooked grayish brown stems 
have small clusters of dull white berries 
covered with wax-coated granules. In 
olden times these berries were collected 
in quantities and boiled to obtain the 
wax of which the fragrant bayberry can¬ 
dles were made. As with many other 
Colonial products, a cheap substitute for 
this wax is now used and few fragrant 
candles are now made from the true 
bayberry wax. There are few lovelier 
color combinations than a gray vase 
holding well-arranged sprays of myrica 
placed against a background of dull mul¬ 
berry carried through hangings and the 
table scarf on which the vase stands. 
Hapless mortals remote from prairie 
and woodland need not be deprived of 
blossoms for winter adornment for they 
may grow their own dried bouquets if 
they have even small patches of ground 
at their disposal. Most easily grown of 
these are old-fashioned everlastings or 
immortelles. All suggestion of funeral 
wreaths and memorials may be elimi¬ 
nated by avoiding the tiny white flow¬ 
ers of the latter name and planting Aero - 
climum roseum, which blossoms, as its 
name indicates, in shades of rose 
and pink. The flower stems should be 
gathered when the unfolding buds are 
but half open and hung, heads down, 
in a dark place until dry. If allowed to 
open fully, the petals fold back, com¬ 
pletely hiding their color and disclosing 
the large mass of stamens which in dry¬ 
ing have no beauty. Small wicker bas¬ 
kets filled with delicate grasses and pink- 
toned strawflowers make dainty gifts. 
An interesting plant dating back to 
Colonial gardens is the globe thistle or 
echinops, an effective subject for our 
use. Often a color scheme requires blue 
tones which are admirably supplied by 
these globes composed of tiny metallic 
blue flowers. With grayish stems and 
foliage and placed in a gray and blue 
vase, a bouquet of echinops excites uni¬ 
versal admiration. The best specimens 
are secured by cutting when in full 
bloom, before the flowers begin in the 
least to fade. The plant, which is tall 
and coarse, blooms in August and com¬ 
bines well with white phlox in the gar¬ 
den. 
Another blue plant of entirely differ¬ 
ent growth is the lovely statice or sea 
lavender, which spreads its lavender blue 
mist over the salt marshes of the Atlan¬ 
tic coast but which its inland lovers are 
obliged to raise in their gardens. It is a 
hardy perennial with widely spreading 
panicles rising above flat masses of 
leaves. Gathered while- in full bloom and 
dried, its minute blossoms retain much 
of their color and lend delicacy to bou¬ 
quets of globe thistle, pussy willow or 
almost any of the larger subjects. 
Old Honesty 
But most exquisite of dried flora is 
the dear old honesty or satin flower of 
our great-great-grandmothers’ gardens 
On the dresser, taking honorable place 
among pewter dishes, was often to be 
seen a bunch of its papery silver discs. 
Honesty, moonwort, satin flower, peter's 
pence and, according to botanists, luna- 
ria, is a hardy biennial, its rather incon¬ 
spicuous purple flowers adding little to 
the beauty of the garden. But the semi¬ 
transparent silvery partitions of its seed 
pouches are wonderfully delicate on their 
tall dainty stems. 
In the Arts and Crafts Exhibit at the 
Chicago Art Institute in October, 1919, 
the honesty illustrated took its place as 
an aristocrat when shown in a large case 
displaying hand-wrought silver against 
a setting of gray velvet. In its slender 
vase of black, the silvery white spray 
gave an exquisite touch to the exhibit 
and was the center of much attention. 
Off in a corner of the garden, where 
its creeping roots cannot crowd out other 
plants, may be grown the unique phy- 
salis or Chinese lantern plant, whose 
bright orange lanterns give a brilliant 
note of color to neutral-toned dried 
bouquets. In pockets of tan pottery 
(Continued on page 641 
