82 THE TREES AND SHRUBS [LECT. 



SPARTIUM. 



Spartium was probably confounded by tbe an- 

 cients with Genista, and whilst the term Genista, of 

 which four shrubby species exist in Greece, was 

 employed by the Latins to designate the several 

 species comprehended under these two genera, that 

 of ^irdpriov was used by the Greeks, or at least 

 by Dioscorides. Thus Virgil speaks of the lenta 

 genista^, and Pliny 1 alludes to its use in making 

 withies. This would seem to refer to the Spartium 

 junceum, Spanish Broom, so much used in Spain as 

 a substitute for flax. The Spanish General Espar- 

 tero obtained his name from this plant, which his 

 family had maintained themselves by cultivating. 



I have already pointed out the probability that 

 Spartium villosum may have been the ao-7ra\a0o? 

 of the Greek writers. 



CYTISUS. 



The Cytisus of the moderns, of which Sibthorp 

 enumerates five shrubby species, has been generally 

 identified with that mentioned by the writers of 

 antiquity, but I have shewn in my " Lectures on 

 Roman Husbandry" 1 " that this is a mistake, and 

 that the Cytisus of the ancients was in fact the 

 plant now known by the name of Medicago arborea. 



CERATONIA. 



The Carob-tree, or Ccratonia siliqua, has been 

 already noticed, p. 2. Pliny alludes to it in lib. 



" Georg., ii. 1 2. ' Lib. xxiv. c. 40. m p. 169. 



