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 CHAPTER TWENTY JAPANESE FLOWER VASES

LTHOUGH the Japanese have not as large a flora as other countries, they have above all others a greater beauty and variety of flower receptacles. These are not only beautiful in form, material, and design, but are made for the use to which they are put; so that a flower can always be placed in an appropriate receptacle, and probably in one especially designed for that particular sort of flower.

Their love of the beautiful, however, does not cause them to overlook the practical in these vases, and they most seek in their shapes what will best prolong the life of flowers. For this reason their vases are wide open at the mouth, for they do not depend upon the vase itself, as we do, to hold flowers in position, having found that the oxygen [200]