DECORATION, If the last rays of the solar spectrum are dear to the Hung mao jen—witness the colour of their flag and the too con hue of their soldiers' tunics—red is a favourite shade with the black-hai sous of Hau. The purple of the Romans reappears, with its old signification of power, in the red umbrellas of atate, so dear to every Chinese mandarin, But it is also par excellence the emblem of happiness and joy, whence its use in every feast or marriage ceremony.
At this season of the year the natives of Hankow are hawking about the streets, apparently as much for the benefit of the Chinese population as for the use of the foreigners, many plants with. rod fruits, evidently intended for the decoration of the ancestral hall as well as of the drawing rooms and doors of the Engl houses, At this time of Christmas fea! ties messengers have been sent to the hills to gather evergreens and the red-borried twigs of the C holly alex crenate, Steamers from up and down the river h come loaded with maggots of green brand and young pines to be used for the di tion of the church and the gay Christms trees, Most of the evergreen coniferce are used for this purpose. The Chinese pine, pinus sinensis, and the aranenria-likecuninghamia sinensis, being common on the hills, are mostly employed. Amongat the redberried twins brought here from the mountains, I have remarked those of the photinia glabra, a lovely evergteon shrub, with leaves resembling those of the Por tuguese laurel, and bunches of small o shaped berries looking like so many beads of red coral.
The druidical mistletoe does not grow in cwt province, any more than in Kiang-nan, but the steamers from the North bring itin quantities to Shanghai, By them we have been supplied with some bunches of the vison album, but apparently for no other purpose than mere. decoration, as I have not heard of the mystic ceremony of which i place anywhere. The Eh parasitical plant is chi-sheng-tsao—self-growing grass, As it is often pronounced ki-sing-tsao in some dialects, it has suggested to a friend of mine the happy idea that the Celestiala, having heard of its use in Great Britain, had called it the kissing grass, the firat part of the name being, to him, the same.
Many other planta than those above quoted can be used here for winter decoration. Amongst the red-berried ones actually met with in our streets and sold by the natives, Ican mention first the pretty randina domestic, with elegant loaves and stems, a favourite with the Chinese, who call it Zien chu (FE PI), heavenly bamboo, The Wan-nien-ching, (5 SH TH), ton-thousand-years-green, is another great It is a kind of orontium, with a spike of soft red berries much resembling the fructiferous stem of our arum macula-tum. This plant is sold with its roots, as well as a very pretty under-shrub, the ardiria crenate, whose small spherical red fruits hang gracefully under a head of ever-green leaves neatly serrated, The pretty seeds of the abrus-precatorius, small red shining peas, with a black hilum are used here by some of our native butler
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.