POETRY OF FLOWERS. 47 
The Scotch, ever wakeful to the beauties of 
their native home, have long recognised the 
poetry of this picturesque plant, and in their 
songs and ballads often chant its praise: 
“ 0, the broom, the bonny, bonny broom, 
The broom of the Cowden Knowes; 
For sure so soft, so sweet a bloom 
Elsewhere there never grows.’' 
Burns lauds it, and well he might, for doubt¬ 
less he had ofttimes seen it waving high over 
the headlong torrents of his darling Scotia, or 
spreading a gorgeous golden canopy down the 
sides of his native mountains. Hark to his 
paean: 
“ Their groves of sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 
Whose bright beaming summers exalt the perfume; 
Far dearer to me yon lone glen of green breckan, 
Wi’ the burn stealing under the long yellow 
broom. 
“Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers, 
Where the bluebell and gowan lurk lowly, unseen; 
And where, lightly tripping amang the sweet flowers, 
A-listening the linnet, oft wanders my Jean.” 
Some florigraphists have deemed the broom 
emblematic of ardor , doubtless from the well- 
authenticated fact that the spadix acquires so 
