8 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



The plant bears a profusion of blossoms, and these, in turn, 

 are followed by the large black pods. All who have en- 

 joyed a day of brilliant sunshine on the heathy wastes soon 

 after the broom has finished flowering cannot have failed 

 to hear the mimic artillery all around them as the genial 

 warmth caused the broom-pods to open. After they have 

 shed their seeds they curl up. The blossoms yield an 

 abundant supply of honey : the bees have, indeed, no finer 

 field for their industry than what we ordinarily call wast 

 land, their richest supplies being gathered from the wide 

 expanses covered with broom, heather, and thyme. 



Culpepper says of the broom " To spend time 

 in writing a description hereof is altogether needless, it 

 being so generally used by all the good housewives almost 

 throughout this land to sweep their houses with, and there- 

 fore very well known to all sorts of people." 



" The vagrant artist oft at eve reclines, 

 And broom's green shoots in besoms neat combines." 



The results of the vagrant's art, we need scarcely remind 

 our readers, are often called brooms, from the material of 

 which they are made ; and its generic name, Surothamnus, 

 points out this use of the plant, as it is compounded from 

 the Greek words signifying "to sweep," and " a shrub." 



