392 ON PLANTS IN RELATION TO ANIMALS. 
“ All parts of this plant yield a yellow dye, and have long 
been used by dyers for producing this colour, especially for 
wool that is to he dyed green with woad. In some parts of 
England the plant is collected in large quantities by the 
poor, and sold to the dyers. The ashes form an alkaline 
salt, which has been used as a remedy in dropsy and other 
diseases.” 
There is no doubt but that the presence of alkalies in many 
of the family is the cause of the diuretic properties with which 
so many of the order are endowed. 
3. Sarothamnus, formerly called Cytisus scoparius , or 
butchers broom, has the latter common name from the fact 
that butchers formerly used rods of it to beat flies from their 
meat. 
At one time broom ( Planta genista ) was celebrated in 
song and story, and the Plantagenet line is supposed to 
have got the name from the assumption of the Planta 
genista as a badge by Henry the Second. 
Broom at one time was supposed to possess very strong 
medicinal powers, thus sheep were supposed to become in¬ 
toxicated by eating the seeds of the plant. The plant and 
its seeds were formerly employed in brewing. There is no 
doubt but that it possesses a quantity of alkaline salts, and 
hence its diuretic action ; it is, however, not much employed 
in the present day. 
4. Ononis. —Of this we need only refer to the single 
species, Ononis arvensis (rest-harrow), distinguished by its 
beautiful pink flowers and viscid herbage. Its common 
name of rest-harrow is doubtless due to the poverty of the 
soil in which it delights to grow, it being recognised by 
the farmer as a plant which indicates such poverty of soil 
that cultivation is of little use. 
Mrs. Lankester says that— 
“ By old writers this plant is called cummuck furze or 
petty Avhin. Gerarde says 4 it is sooner found than desired of 
husbandmen, because the tough and woodie rootes are 
cumbersome unto them, by reason they do staie the plough 
and make the oxen stande; whereupon it was called rest- 
plough or rest-harrow/ 
“ It seems difficult to destroy it by fallowing, and is 
called by old herbalists Arresta bovis and Remova aratri. 
Gerarde says: f Pliny reporteth ff that being boyied in 
oxymel (or the syrup made with hony and vinegar) till the 
one half be wasted, it is given to those that have a falling 
sicknesse. The tender sprigs or crops of this shrub, before 
the thornes come forth, are preserved in pickle, and be very 
