Page:Japanese flower arrangement.djvu/28

 which it is thought to have sprung. In fact, what Captain Brinkley so aptly wrote in regard to the tea ceremony—"although the embryo of the tea ceremony came from India, its full-grown conventions as practised by the Japanese could not be recognized by the land of their origin"—applies as well to Ike-bana.

China alone shows a faint impression left by its influence in its hideous funeral bouquets—masses of brilliant flowers on short stems, crudely and tightly put together much as our bouquets were arranged several generations ago. The Chinese also lay claim to an exquisite basket for holding flowers. But this basket is so Greek in outline that there is considerable doubt as to whether it is Grecian or Chinese.

By natural outcome from the Buddhist desire to preserve animal life came the desire to preserve plant life. It thus came to be one of the occupations of the priests to arrange and care for those plants and flowers which were the most popular of all offerings to the gods. [22]