6 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



and it was henceforth borne by the rest of his race, its 

 mediaeval name, planta genista, giving the family title, Plan- 

 tagenet. It may be seen on the great seal of Richard I., 

 this being what we may term its first recognised and 

 official heraldic appearance. In the chapel of the Tudor 

 Henry VII., at Westminster, we find the broom intro- 

 duced in the stained glass of the windows, but here it 

 would probably be employed simply from its beauty, apart 

 from any symbolic significance. Another interesting use 

 of it may be seen in the order of knighthood, the " Cosse 

 de Genest," established by St. Louis of France, on the 

 occasion of his marriage, in the year 1234. The collar of 

 the order was composed alternately of the fleur-de-lys of 

 France and the broom-flower, the motto being Exaltat 

 hnmiles " He exalteth the lowly ." This order was for a 

 long time held in high esteem ; and amongst the foreign 

 potentates who received it we find the name of our own 

 Richard II. 



Turning now to the literary side of our subject, to 

 see what measure of appreciation the broom has received, 

 we find in Chaucer the line 



" Amid the broom he basked him in the sun," 



a suggestion of the great open wastes and commons 

 glowing in the sunlight, and golden with the countless 

 blossoms of the goi-se and broom ; while Shakespeare, on 

 the other hand, finds in the tangled thicket a retreat 

 for shade and solitude, and writes of the 



" Broom groves, 

 Whose shadow the dismissed bachelor loves." 



The delicate odour of the blossom has naturally not escaped 

 notice. Spenser writes, " Sweet is the broom flowre;" and 



