148 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



free bearing is one mass of blossom, and is con- 

 spicuous on a hillside a mile away from us. 

 Chaucer, Shakespeare, Burns, Scott, Wordsworth, 

 and many other Nature-lovers amongst our poets 

 make appreciative references to the plant. 



It was in Anglo-Saxon plant-lists the brom, and 

 our ancestors, finding the long branches of the 

 broom rather well adapted for sweeping purposes 

 when bound up together, utilised it for this prosaic 

 purpose, and called the manufactured article a 

 broom in consequence. Gerard tells us that "that 

 worthy Prince of famous memorie, Henry 8, 

 King of England, was woont to drinke the dis- 

 tilled water of broome floures against surfets and 

 diseases thereof arising." The flowers too, " being 

 fully blowne, stamped and mixed with hog's grease, 

 do ease the paine of the goute," while the house- 

 keeper will gather the buds and "lay them in pickle 

 or salt, which afterwards being washed and 

 boyled, are used for sallads, as capers be, and be 

 eaten with no less delight, and stir vp an appetite 

 to meate." Broom tops, before the utilisation of 

 the hop for the purpose, were added to beer to give 

 it a bitter flavour, while the roasted seeds have been 

 used in lieu of coffee berries. Though the broom, 

 once established, grows sturdily, one may find that 

 an extremely severe winter will suffice to destroy it. 

 It can bear the searching sea-breezes better than 

 most things, however, and is planted on the sand- 



