BROOM 241 



Herbert. " Take as many handfuls (as you thinke good) 

 of the dried leaves of Broom gathered and brayed to 

 powder in the moneth of May, then take vnto each 

 hand full of the dried leaues one spoonful and a halfe 

 of the seed of Broom braied into powder : mingle these 

 together, and let the sicke drinke thereof each day a 

 quantitie first and last, vntill he find some ease. The 

 medicine must be continued and so long vsed vntill it 

 be quite extinguished : for it is a disease not very 

 suddenly cured, but must by little and litde be dealt 

 "withall." 



The flowers of the broom will be found in profusion 

 in the Spring and early Summer. They are large and 

 of a bright golden yellow, and make a grand display. 

 They grow singly or in pairs on the stem, but the stems 

 are so numerous and so freely blossom-bearing that the 

 whole shrub is transformed into a mass of glowing yellow. 

 Amongst some " Prognosticks " that we find in a book 

 some two hundred and fifty years old is this — that " if 

 the Broom be full of Flours it usually signifies Plenty." 

 This is a dictum of a particularly cheering character, 

 since the years are few indeed when the broom is not 

 thus seized with a spirit of optimistic prophecy. The 

 flowers of the broom are five-petalled, and of the 

 papilionaceous, or butterfly, type that we find character- 

 istic of the great natural order to which it belongs, and 

 including such well-known plants as the furze, rest harrow, 

 melilot, the various clovers, bird's-foot trefoil, kidney- 

 vetch, sainfoin, tufted vetch, everlasting pea, broad bean, 

 and scarlet runner. In all of these we find the form 

 shown in our illustration, a broadly-displayed petal called 



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