522 



SOPHORA SPARTIUM 



branches being loaded with the blue and white racemes in June, their 

 beauty greatly enhanced by the elegant fern-like foliage. It requires a good 

 loamy soil, and a site exposed to full sunshine. No frost has yet affected it. 

 According to Henry, in the elevated regions where it grows, it often 

 covers large tracts of barren country, just as gorse does in Britain. It is 

 propagated by cuttings made of young shoots with a heel of old wood, in 

 July and August, and placed in a gently heated frame. 



Nearly related to S. viciifolia is S. MOORCROFTIANA, Bentham, with 

 similar foliage and habit, but which is more spiny, more downy, has smaller 

 leaflets, yellow flowers, and a longer more slender calyx. Native of Kashmir 

 and Thibet, It has not, I think, blossomed in cultivation yet. 



SOPHORA VICIIFOLIA. 



SPARTIUM JUNCEUM, Linnceus. SPANISH BROOM. 



LEGUMINOS^. 

 (Bot. Mag., t. 85.) 



A tall shrub of rather gaunt habit, with erect, cylindrical, rush-like 

 stems, smooth and dark green, which, in the almost entire absence of 

 foliage, fulfil the functions of leaves. It grows 8 to 12 ft. high. Leaves 

 very few and deciduous, simple, linear, \ to | in. long, with silky hairs 

 beneath. Flowers fragrant, disposed in terminal racemes 12 or even 

 1 8 ins. long, on the current season's growth. Each flower is about i in. 

 long, pea-shaped (papilionaceous), shortly stalked, rich glowing yellow, 

 with a showy, roundish standard petal nearly i in. across. Pod i\ to 3 ins. 

 long, ^ in. wide, hairy, five- to twelve-seeded. 



