COLUTEA. 



LEGUMINOSjt. DIADELPHIA DECANDRIA. 



The derivation of the name is uncertain : it is sometimes called 

 Bladder Senna French, baguenaudier ; Italian, colutea. 



THE common Colutea, Colutea arborescens, has several 

 stems, which grow twelve or fourteen feet high, and 

 divide into many branches clothed with leaves, four or 

 five lobed on each side, with an odd one at the end, each 

 lobe indented in the form of a heart; they are of a 

 grayish colour. The flowers are pea-shaped, or as the 

 botanists term it papilionaceous, butterfly-shaped ; they 

 are yellow, and grow two or three together, on a foot- 

 stalk two inches long, rising from the axils of the leaves. 



It is a native of Italy, Carniola, the south of France, 

 and the warmer parts of Switzerland ; it has been found 

 on Mount Vesuvius, even in the ascent to the crater, 

 where were few other plants : with us it flowers from 

 June to August. The leaves have been used as a sub- 

 stitute for those of senna ; which, with the form of the 

 seed-vessel, has obtained it the name of Bladder Senna. 

 It is said to afford a food grateful to cattle ; it was cul- 

 tivated in England in the year 1570. Mr. Curtis ob- 

 serves, that a wet soil is fatal to it. Miller recommends 

 gardeners to suspend lobsters' claws or the bowls of 

 tobacco-pipes on different parts of these shrubs to entice 

 the earwigs, which are apt to nestle within the bladders 

 and destroy the seeds. 



