Even a lowly thing like the scarred stalk of an old Cabbage has a pattern worthy of imitation. The shields or remains of leaves of former seasons form an artistic detail of the growing Palm Tree. The Romans occasionally reproduced them on their columns. Leaf shields are also met with in Greek border ornament. Why must our sculptors represent the various fruits as bursting with mature mellowness? In many cases, the unripe fruit is artistically more attractive than when in the later stages of development. We rarely think of disease or decay as being pleasing, yet some plants are artistic even in their dissolution. Certain galls and cankers draw beautiful designs on the bodies of their victims. Everything in plantdom has its own peculiar style of structure and beauty. All are worthy of imitation and reproduction, provided only it is done in the right place and the right way. It must be remembered that, in origin, ornament was first symbolic and then decorative. Real ornament is never unduly prominent but subordinates itself to the idea and structure of the whole. Man has imitated the plants also in things of a lowlier nature. Cups, vases, pitchers and other utensils were undoubtedly first suggested by similar shapes in plantdom. It is not too fantastic to imagine that the smoking pipe is modelled after the flower known as the Dutchman’s Pipe. An electric wire running down the chain of a suspended lighting fixture looks all the world like a climbing vine. Human jewelry has its prototype among the flowers. Our garden beauties powdered their faces long before their human sisters ever thought of that method of self-adornment. It is said that Greek dancers and athletes sometimes exercised before certain slender plants in order to pattern their bodies after them. We are not all artists or interior decorators, and yet we can all make use of the artistic possibilities present and inherent in our plant friends. We can cultivate and further the use of plants and flowers in and about our homes. Europe is far ahead of us in this respect. In England, a city house may be ever so frowsy and run-down but it will be sure to have its well-kept window boxes. The suburban homes of labourers and other lowly folk are often veritable bowers of loveliness. The German must have a garden in which to drink his beer. If there is none handy, he builds one, and cool and delightful he makes it. In many European cities, all the houses come out to the building line and even arch the sidewalks. Not a bit of greensward is in sight. Yet shrubs, flowers and vines spring from every sill and balcony and so make the streets to blossom as the Rose.