216 



ARBOllETUM ET FRUTICETUM BRITANNICUM. 



C. Xabtirnum var. latiftliuni Pers. and Du Mont ; Cytise des Alpes, I'Aubours, Fi: ; Alpen Boh- 

 nenbaum, Gi'r. ; Maggio Ciondolo, I/al. 

 Engravings. Waldst. et Kit. Hung., 3. t. 260. ; the plate of this tree in Arb. Brit., 1st edit., toI. v 

 a'lid our Jig. 342. 



342. Cytisus (X.8bumum) alpinus. 



Spec. Char., S/'c. Branches glabrous and terete. Leaves petiolate; leaflets 

 ovate-ianceolate, rounded at the base. Racemes pendulous. Pedicels and 

 calyxes puberulous. Legumes glabrous, few-seeded, niarginate. (Don's 

 Mill.) A deciduous low tree. Found in Carinthia, in the Alps of Jura, 

 on Mount Cenis, and on the Apennines. According to some, it is also 

 found wild in Scotland ; but, though it is much cultivated in some parts of 

 Fifeshire and Forfarshire, it is far from being indigenous there. Height 

 20 ft. to 30 ft., sometimes much higher in a state of cultivation. It was 

 introduced into Britain about the same time as the other species, viz. 1596; 

 and was, probably, for a long time confounded with it; for which reason we 

 shall treat of the two species, or races, together. Flowers yellow ; May 

 and June. Legume brown ; ripe in October. 



Varieties. 



S" C. (L.) a. 2 pendulus has pendulous branches, and, in the foliage and 

 legumes, seems intermediate between C. Laburnum and C. (L.) al- 

 pinus. This is very obvious in a fine sp'icimen of this variety in the 

 arboretum of the Messrs. Loddiges, as shown in the plate in Arb. 

 Brit., 1st etlit., vol. v. The pendulous variety of C. Z-aburnum is 

 a much less robust plant. 



t C. (L.) a. 3 picr2)ic7-dsce7is llovi., C. L. purpureum Hort., C. Adami 

 Poir., C. L. coccineum Baum. Cat., the purple Laburnum, the scarlet 

 Laburnum, is not a hybrid between C. Z,aburnuin and C. purpureus, 

 as was at first supposed, but a sport from a bud of C'ytisus pur- 

 pureus inserted in C'. alpinus, in 1825, by D. Adam, a nurseryman at 

 Vitry, near Paris. The flowers are of a reddish purple, slightly 

 tinged with buff) and are produced in pendent spikes, 8 in. or more 

 long. A few years after this sport was originated, it was found that 

 it had a strong tendency to return to the original kinds ; and that 

 from one bud or graft, branches were produced of the true Cytisus 

 purpiireus, of the true Laburnum (either the Alpine or the common. 



