CYTISUS LAB UR NUM.-COMMON LABURNUM. 
Class XVII. DIADELPHIA. Order III. DECANDRIA. 
Natural Order, LEGUMINOSH3. THE PEA TRIBE. 
Laburnum, (a name formed from the Alpine name of the tree L’Aubours.) Calyx campanulate. Legume 
many-seeded, not dilated at the upper suture. Flowers yellow. Branches unarmed, leafy. Branches terete, 
whitish: leaves petiolate: leaflets ovate-lanceolate, pubescent beneath: racemes pendulous, simple: 
pedicels and calyxes clothed with adpressed pubescence: legume linear, many-seeded, clothed with 
adpressed pubescence. Native of Europe, frequent on the lower mountains. The laburnum, often called 
golden blossoms by country people, is a tree dear to the child at school, because its pendant clusters unfold 
just before the Midsummer vacation, and whose opening buds have erewhile made the young hearts within 
us beat with joy and hope. 
“ The Laburnum is a large growing tree, and although,” says Gilpin in his Forest Scenery, “ we have 
not frequently seen it assume that character which would make its form an object of desire for the artist, yet 
its rich leguminous golden flowers give it great value for the pleasure ground. It is, moreover, a hardy tree, 
and we can answer, from our own experience, that the timber, when made into chairs and other pieces of 
furniture, and allowed to darken, is sometimes hardly distinguishable from rosewood. If not allowed to get 
dark, the outer wood remains of a delicate yellow; the heart wood is always of a deep hue. It is extremely 
hard, and so heavy, that it will sink in water; and the French, who make great use of it, call it the Ebony 
of the Alps, because it is a native of the valleys of these mountains. The timber of this tree is indeed the 
highest in price of any that grows in Britain. A considerable quantity of laburnum was sold by public sale 
at Brechin Castle and Panmure, in 1809, at fully half a guinea per foot. The tree is very abundant in that 
neighbourhood, the roads being often bordered with it. There is a shrub variety of the laburnum, which, in 
its department is no less beautiful. The true sort is easily distinguished from the shrub by the greater size 
of the leaves, and the superior length of the bunches of papilionaceous flowers. 
A laburnum, which was cut at Greenlaw in Edinburghshire, in the year 1763, measured four feet six 
inches in girth, and furnished a plank of beautiful red wood fourteen inches broad. It was planted in the 
end of the seventeenth century, when laburnum trees were first introduced into Scotland. We are per- 
suaded that many much larger laburnums now exist in the country. 
The shrubby stems of C. Scoparius are sought after, on account of their beauty when cut into 
veneers. Goats are fond of browsing on the herbaceous twigs of this plant, which is believed to be the 
flowering Cytisus of Virgil; and its branches, when young and tender, are often used in this country as well 
as in Italy, as fodder, and sometimes substituted, on account of their bitterness, for hops in brewing. 
They are also said to be capable of tanning leather, and of being made into a coarse kind of cloth. 
In our provinces, the older plants are frequently employed as thatching for cottages, sheds, and ricks. 
The seeds have a very bitter taste, and, as well as a decoction of the young twigs, called “broom- 
tops,” are esteemed as a diuretic. When burned they afford a considerable quantity of vegetable alkali, 
upon which their medicinal properties chiefly depend; but their bitterness is also, in dropsical habits, 
where strength is in general greatly reduced, a further recommendation. 
The seeds of the common Laburnum (C. Laburnum ,) were observed by Haller to be violently emetic 
and cathartic; but they are now known to be absolutely poisonous. Several serious cases have occurred, 
both in this country and in France, from children swallowing laburnum flowers and seeds. 
Professor Taylor (in his work on Poisons, p. 759) tells us that “Dr. Traill met with two cases of poi- 
soning by the seeds, and an interesting case, which was the subject of a trial at Inverness, has been more 
recently reported by Dr. Christison. (Ed. Med. and S. J. Oct. 1843.) A youth, with the intention of merely 
producing vomiting in one of his fellow- servants, a female, put some dry laburnum-bark into the broth 
which was being prepared for their dinner. The cook, who remarked a “ strong peculiar taste ” in the 
broth, soon became very ill, and in five minutes was attacked with violent vomiting. The account of the 
symptoms is imperfect; for the cause of them was not even suspected until six months afterwards. The 
vomiting continued thirty-six hours ; was accompanied by shivering, — pain in the abdomen, especially in 
the stomach, — and great feebleness, with severe purging. These symptoms continued, more or less, for a 
period of eight months ; and she fell off in flesh and strength. At this period she was seen by a physician, 
who had been called on by the law authorities to investigate the case. She was then suffering from 
gastro-intestinal irritation, vomiting after food, pain in the abdomen, increased by pressure, diarrhoea, tenes- 
mus, &c., with other serious symptoms. The medical opinion was that she was then in a highly dangerous 
