64: POPULAR FIELD BOTANY. 
coloured, permanent leaves; the upper with two small teeth, the 
lower with three. Corolla of five petals, standard, egg-shaped, 
wings oblong, obtuse ; keel of two straight, obtuse petals adhering 
at their lower edges.* Pod oblong, little longer than the calyx. 
Of this plant there are two species. One tall and 
flowering all the winter and summer, the other smaller in 
all its parts and running on the ground, its blossoms not 
appearing till autumn. ‘The larger species, 
ULex EvuRopa&us, Common Furze, Whin, or Gorse, 
begins flowering very early in the year, and often before 
the commencement, for occasional bushes will appear in 
the autumn in full flower. Its bright yellow flowers are a 
great ornament to the heathy and often desolate looking 
places in which it grows. It prefers a sandy and gravelly 
soil, and is rare in the Highlands. A very bushy shrub, from 
two to five feet high, beset with thorns, leaves small and 
thorn-tipped, flowers solitary or in pairs, bright yellow. Two 
egg-shaped spreading bracteas at the base of the calyx. 
When Linnzus came to England he was so delighted with 
this beautiful plant, that it is said he fell on his knees, and 
* The standard of a butterfiy-shaped flower is the large upper petal. The 
wings, the two on the sides, and the eed the one which appears folded, and 
which covers the stamens and pistils. 
