DICOTYLEDONS 75 



about seven to nine pairs of leaflets. The flowers 

 are in umbels. The leaves are purgative, contain- 

 ing the same principle as the Cytisus. 



Spanish Broom {Spartium junceunt) has long 

 been cultivated as a garden plant. The stems are 

 usually leafless, bearing large, yellow, fragrant 

 flowers. Though used as a forage-plant in Lan- 

 guedoc, it has been found that animals, after 

 browsins^ upon the young shoots in spring, have 

 suffered somewhat. A similar afiection has followed 

 their eating the buds of the oak. 



Lupin {Lupinus, sp.). — Lupins are easily known 

 by their digitate leaves and long spikes of blue, 

 lilac, yellow or white flowers. 



Of this genus, one species (L. albus) was culti- 

 vated by the ancients for its seeds as food, both 

 by Greeks and Egyptians ; and they are still used 

 in Andalusia, Corsica, and Piedmont. 



A lupin with blue flowers is cultivated in France 

 for the nourishment of sheep; but another, a dwarf 

 species, native of the Mediterranean regions, is a 

 yellowed-flowered one (Z. luteus). It has also 

 fragrant flowers. It is often eaten by animals, 

 being less bitter than the white-flowered lupin. 

 However, in Germany it has been so troublesome 

 in causing a complaint, that this has been called 

 " lupinose." It began in i860, on sheep ; in 1880, 

 of 240,000, 14,138 died of it. Though sheep were 



