SO FLORA DOMESTIC A. 



Broom makes a pleasant shade for a lounger in the 

 summer : it seems to embody the sunshine, while it inter- 

 cepts its heat : 



" To noontide shades incontinent he ran, 

 Where purls the brook with sleep-inviting sound ; 

 Or, when Dan Sol to slope his wheels began, 

 Amid the broom he basked him on the ground, 

 Where the wild thyme and camomile are found." 



CASTLE OF INDOLENCE, Canto I. 



Mr. Horace Smith speaks of it as poisonous, yet most 

 of the species are eaten by cattle : some are particularly 

 recommended as a food for kine. The Base Broom, or 

 Green-weed, is said to embitter the milk of the cows that 

 eat of it ; but, from the bitterness of the plant itself, they 

 commonly refuse it. 



" my herd 



Cannot be browsed upon the mount, for so 

 The heifers might devour with eager tongue 

 The poisonous budding brooms." 



AMARYNTHUS. 



Virgil speaks of it as a food for cattle : 



" salices, humilesque genistse, 



Aut illae pecori frondem, aut pastoribus umbras 

 Sufficiunt ; sepemque satis, et pabula melli." 



GEORGIC ii. 



" Willows and humble broom afford either browse for the cattle, or 

 shade for the shepherds, and hedges for the fields, and food for bees." 



MARTYN'S TRANSLATION. 



The poet is supposed to intend the Spanish Broom in 

 this passage, which grows plentifully in some parts of Italy, 

 and of which the Italians weave the slender branches into 

 baskets. 



Virgil speaks of it in another passage as the " bending 

 broom." In England, the Broom has generally a kind of 

 sharp and arrow-like straightness ; in Italy, where it rises 

 higher than in this country, the branches being very slender, 

 do not support themselves so stiffly 



