of the flat, open mouths of the receptacle usually employed, and the few sprays used, it is no mean task to make the separate branches ‘stay put’ in the water, and they have to be carefully blocked into place with neat little wedges of bamboo.
There are other receptacles, besides these open vases and flat-topped jars, in infinite variety—wicker baskets twisted and stained so that they resemble bronze; bamboo in a dozen different forms and shapes, as rafts, as buckets, as plain flower-holders; and almost as great stress is laid on the proper selection of these as on the arrangement to be put into them. For example, a bamboo stand for a wedding celebration must show no cut. That would be bad luck and bad taste, symbolic of a broken faith, a severed and maimed affection.
After these rudimentary principles have been learned, there are still many other phases of the cult to be studied—how many leaves should be left on a twig, for instance (in Bamboo, this number should be three or five); what plants may be combined to express a sentiment, etc. Of the more involved methods of setting out flowers, so that a particular place or poetical idea is suggested, I can say nothing. It is far beyond the elementary stage of my training; indeed, I doubt if any foreigner—bar Mr. Conder—could speak on this point with authority, so erudite is the cult. I quote the latter on the
