BROOM. 
103 
yello-w, white, and purple flowers. The first is 
the most common. 
Their graves o’ sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon, 
Where bright beaming summers exalt the perfume; 
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o’ green breckan, 
Wi’ the burn stealing under the lang yellow Broom. 
Burns. 
The wilding Broom as sweet, which gracefully 
Flings its long tresses, waving in yellow beauty. 
Landon. 
The purple heath and golden Broom, 
Which scent the passing gale. 
Montgomery. 
The Broom and the furze are perpetually as¬ 
sociated. Indeed, the latter is sometimes called 
by botanists Genista Spinosa —the thorny Broom, 
and provincially whin, or gorse. It grows abun¬ 
dantly on all our wastes: and it is recorded of 
Linneus that, when he visited England in 1736, 
he was so much delighted with the golden blossom 
of the furze, which he then saw for the first time 
on a common near London, that he fell on his 
knees, enraptured at the sight. He conveyed 
some of the plants to Sweden, but complained 
that he could never preserve it in the garden 
during the winter. 
