All over Nairobi, and all over Africa, are ugly artificial blooms that mar the landscape and that environmentalists want plucked up and removed.

It had been fashioned out of artificial blooms painted on and cut out of toilet paper by one of the passengers, mounted in moss that had been brought aboard by one of the scientists.

The technique to fertilize the ocean with iron sulphate is controversial, the Federal Environment Ministry called for a halt to the experiment, partly because environmentalists feared damage to marine plants and pets by an artificial algal bloom.

They are especially concerned about a sleek little number that requires no claim ticket: a long row of electric green bamboo, surrounded by pink petals peeking out from pots, dangling spider plants and exotic artificial purple blooms.

She was soon able to sit up, in curls and a laced cap and nightgown, and to have a little artificial bloom dropped into the hollow caverns of her cheeks.

As she sat down to breakfast with Yvette beside her, Edna placed the artificial bloom in such a way that the female d'Alembert could check it out more closely.

And he has been given a co-star of comparable firepower in the throaty siren Helen Mirren as the captain's adversarial helpmate, Alice, who bursts into glorious artificial bloom in the second act.

But Thailand also ranks as the world's largest exporter of artificial blooms, with more than $7 million a year in export sales, according to the Art Flowers Association of Thailand, a trade group.

There are other bouquets of artificial blooms around the room and small nosegays on every table.