The French employ velvet, kid, and fine cambric for the petals, and taffeta for the leaves. Very recently thin plates of bleached whalebone have been used with great success for some portions of artificial flowers.
As colours and stains, the following are employed in Paris:—
Blue. Indigo dissolved in oil of vitriol, and the acid partly neutralised with salt of tartar or whiting.
Green. A solution of distilled verdigris.
Lilac. Liquid archil.
Red. Carmine dissolved in a solution of salt of tartar, or in spirits of hartshorn.
Violet. Liquid archil, mixed with a little salt of tartar.
Yellow. Tincture of turmeric.
The above colours are usually applied to the petals with the fingers.
Flowers. Syn. Flores, L. Among chemists, this term is applied to various pulverulent substances obtained by sublimation, as flowers of antimony, benzoin, zinc, sulphur, &c. The term has been discarded from modern chemical nomenclature, but is still commonly employed in familiar language and trade.