The character of the plant is always observed. For instance, no Japanese flower artist would put wistaria into an upright vase, He would probably use one of the vases which hook on to a post so that the wistaria would fall naturally. Japanese vases should not detract from th colour of the plants—they are usual: bronze, brown-bronze, or earth coloured. And there are severa methods of holding the flowers in place. One of these is to cut pieces at willow or oleander stem and ft them inside the rim of the containers.
Fork-shaped segments of oleander stem, for instance, can make just the holder needed for the "to-one-side" line which is so marked a favourite in Japanese flower arrangement, They also use a special device with tiny prongs on which the bases of stems are impaled to hold flowers upright in a flat, shallow container.
The actual selection of floral mat-enol is most important. You have to know what to cut and where to cut it, and for that reason Japanese ladies never leave the arrangement of their flowers to anyone else—they would be shocked at the idea of letting their house-boy look after a task of such artistic moment. The flower arrangement must harmonize ith the receptacle, and when it is finished it must have some relation to the rest of the room. Certain pro. portions between the size of the vase and of the arrangement must be kept.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.