THE BROOM — continued. 
towards the apex of the keel, and the long stamens and the style, which have been in 
a condition of considerable tension, escape explosively, striking the insect on the 
back. As the stigma will touch it first there is then a chance of cross-pollination if 
the insect bears any pollen from a flower previously visited. 
‘‘When,*’ continues Darwin, “the bee flies away, the pistil curls still more, and the stigmatic surface becomes upturned 
and stands close to the protruded anthers of the shorter stamens. We have seen that the bee gets dusted on its abdomen from 
the shorter stamens of the younger flowers ; and this pollen will be left on the upturned stigma of the curled pistil of the older 
flowers. Thus both the upper and lower surface of the bee gets dusted with pollen, which will be transferred to the stigma at 
two different periods.” 
The spiral style thus secures for the plant a double chance of crossing, whilst most 
other explosive flowers have but one. 
The dark brown flat pod, from one to two inches long, and fringed with stiff 
hairs along each margin, bursts open elastically when ripe, its two valves curling 
up spirally so as to jerk out the fifteen or sixteen seeds. There are traces of 
transverse partitions across the interior of the pod, between the seeds, and the seeds 
each have a fleshy swelling or strophiole at their base. 
Several genera in this Tribe being very closely similar, there have been many 
changes in the name of the Broom ; but its spiral style and flattened pod are now 
recognised as the chief characters of Wimmer’s genus Sarothamnus (from the Greek 
crapoco, sarod, I sweep ; 6 dp.vo<;, thamnos, a shrub) ; whilst the old specific name 
scoparius comes from the Latin scopes, twigs used as a besom. 
The plant has often been used medicinally and Gerard writes : — 
“The young buds of the floures are to be gathered and laid in pickle or salt, which afterwards being washed and boyled, is 
used for sallets, as capers be, and be eaten with no less delight ” ; 
but as the plant contains the poisonous alkaloid Sparteine, though less dangerous 
than its relative the Laburnum, it is more safely let alone. 
The sprig of Broom worn in his cap by Geoflfey of Anjou, father of our 
Henry II, was probably an emblem of humility ; and the motto of the Order of the 
Geneste founded by St. Louis in 1234 was Exaltat humiles," “He exalteth the 
humble ” ; but this humble wilding, the Planta genista of the heaths of Northern 
France, gave a surname to the longest and proudest dynasty of England’s kings. 
