Into the detailed study of the intricacies of this subject I cannot here enter; the East-Asian influences are not to be neglected, which had probably even in early times an effect upon the form that was assumed, and have fused the correct style of compound flowers for flat ornament with the above-mentioned forms, so as to produce peculiar patterns; we meet them often in the so-called Persian textures and flat ornaments (Fig. 16). We now come to the third group of forms--the so-called Cashmere pattern, or Indian palmetta. The developed forms, which, when they have attained their highest development, often show us outlines that are merely fanciful, and represent quite a bouquet of flowers leaning over to one side, and springing from a vessel (the whole corresponding to the Roman form with the vessel), must be thrown to one side, while we follow up the simpler forms, because in this case also we have no information as to either the where or the when the forms originated. (Figs. 17, 18, 19.) [Illustration: FIG. 17.] Here again we are struck by resemblances to the forms that were the subjects of our previous study, we even come across direct transitional forms, which differ from the others only by the lateral curve of the apex of the leaf; sometimes it is the central part, the spadix, that is bent outward, and the very details show a striking agreement with the structure of the aroid inflorescence, so much so that one might regard them as actually copied from them. [Illustration: FIG. 18.] This form of ornament has been introduced into Europe since the French expedition to Egypt, owing to the importation of genuine Cashmere shawls. (When it cropped up in isolated forms, as in Venice in the fifteenth century, it appears not to have exerted any influence; its introduction is perhaps rather to be attributed to calico-printing.) Soon afterward the European shawl-manufacture, which is still in a flourishing state, was introduced. Falcot informs us that designs of a celebrated French artist, Couder, for shawl-patterns, a subject that he studied in India itself, were exported back to that country and used there (Fig. 20). In these shawl-patterns the original simple form meets us in a highly developed, magnificent, and splendidly colored differentiation and elaboration. This we can have no scruples in ranking along with the mediæval plane-patterns, which we have referred to above, among the highest achievements of decorative art. [Illustration: FIG. 19.]