244 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



While many of our plants have various names, and are 

 equally known by any of them, the broom is the broom 

 alone ; no change of dialect, no provincialism, no local 

 usage, changes this. It was in Anglo-Saxon days the 

 brom, and we are told in every text-book that the name 

 arose from this plant being of special use in the manufacture 

 of brooms for sweeping purposes.' The botanical name, 

 Sarothamnus, dwells again upon this domestic service, 

 seeing it is compounded of two Greek words, signifying 

 to sweep, and a shrub, while scoparius is derived from 

 scopa;, meaning small twigs, the inference again being that 

 these same small twigs are just the things for making 

 brooms. The name broom has been so entirely in use 

 as a plant name, that it has gained an individuality of 

 its own, and seems to have wandered away from all 

 suggestion of housewifery ; but we shall realise the intimacy 

 of its connection therewith if, instead of calling our present 

 plant the broom, we call it besom. Besom or no, it is a 

 charming plant, and one could readily, from Chaucer, 

 Shakespeare, Spenser, Dryden, Thomson, Scott, Wordsworth, 

 Cowper, and many another nature-lover, find testimonies 

 of their appreciation of its beauty. 



Turning back, however, to matters more prosaic, 

 we find the broom of great utility in thatching cottages 

 and ricks,^ and when better fuel is not obtainable, broom 

 is again capable of playing a useful part in rural economy. 

 A decoction of broom-tops has until quite recently been 



' And returning vnto the same he founde it in dede sweped cleane with 

 bromes, but altogether emptie. — Luke xi.— Udall. 



' He made carpenters to make houses and lodgynges, of great tymber, 

 and set the houses lyke streetes, and covered them with rede and brome, so 

 that it was hke a lytell towne. — Froissart. 



