plant life. In this respect, as in many others, their method
differs from that pursued in Western countries. Here we are apt to
see only the flower stems, heads as it were, without body, stuck
promiscuously into a vase.

When a tea-master has arranged a flower to his satisfaction he will
place it on the tokonoma, the place of honour in a Japanese room.
Nothing else will be placed near it which might interfere with its
effect, not even a painting, unless there be some special aesthetic
reason for the combination. It rests there like an enthroned prince,
and the guests or disciples on entering the room will salute it with a
profound bow before making their addresses to the host. Drawings from
masterpieces are made and published for the edification of amateurs. The
amount of literature on the subject is quite voluminous. When the flower
fades, the master tenderly consigns it to the river or carefully buries
it in the ground. Monuments are sometimes erected to their memory.

The birth of the Art of Flower Arrangement seems to be simultaneous with
that of Teaism in the fifteenth century. Our legends ascribe the first
flower arrangement to those early Buddhist saints who gathered the
flowers strewn by the storm and, in their infinite solicitude for all
living things, placed them in vessels of water. It is said that Soami,
the great painter and connoisseur of the court of Ashikaga-Yoshimasa,
was one of the earliest adepts at it. Juko, the tea-master, was one of
his pupils, as was also Senno, the founder of the house of Ikenobo, a
family as illustrious in the annals of flowers as was that of the Kanos
in painting. With the perfecting of the tea-ritual under Rikiu, in the
latter part of the sixteenth century, flower arrangement also attains
its full growth. Rikiu and his successors, the celebrated Oda-wuraka,
Furuka-Oribe, Koyetsu, Kobori-Enshiu, Katagiri-Sekishiu, vied with each
other in forming new combinations. We must remember, however, that the
flower-worship of the tea-masters formed only a part of their aesthetic
ritual, and was not a distinct religion by itself. A flower arrangement,
like the other works of art in the tea-room, was subordinated to the
total scheme of decoration. Thus Sekishiu ordained that white plum
blossoms should not be made use of when snow lay in the garden.
"Noisy" flowers were relentlessly banished from the tea-room. A flower
arrangement by a tea-master loses its significance if removed from
the