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SLEIGHT
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Appearing Flowers

A bouquet that was not there a second ago — spring flowers that fill a hand, or a bare stick that blooms along its length.

Difficulty
Beginner
Performs
Stage, Parlor, Corporate
Type
Appearance

What they see

The effect from the front

The hands are empty. They come together and open on a bouquet far too large to have been held by anyone.

The other form is slower and better: a plain black stick is held up, tapped, and flowers open along it one after another until it is covered.

Both are visual rather than puzzling. Nobody is asked to think about where the flowers came from — the effect is the sudden colour, which is why it has survived as an opener and a curtain call while cleverer things have not.

Provenance

Where it comes from

Spring flowers, made of light fabric over wire that compresses flat and opens on release, are a nineteenth-century manufacturing idea sold by dealers ever since. Feather flowers, the plumed stage version, are usually described as Asian in origin and were a standard of touring acts by the early twentieth century.

Like the appearing cane, this is a prop the material invented rather than a person.

Learning it

What it takes

Easy to operate and easy to do badly.

There is no sleight. The difficulty is loading and the fact that flowers do not go back: a bouquet that has been produced takes real time to repack, which means one production per performance unless you carry several.

They are also fragile and hate being crushed in a case. Working performers carry them in a box that nothing else goes in, and replace them more often than they would like.

What you need

Props for the Appearing Flowers

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