tender. 
ous, slender, tough, and armed with long spines; 
its flowers have a bright yellow colour, stand on 
long footstalks at the ends of the branches, ap- 
pear from April till July, and make a very orna- 
mental appearance ; and its pods are short, hard, 
and thickened towards the upper suture.—Ano- 
ther species, which has been called by some bot- 
anists Spartiwm spinosum, and by others Spar- 
tiwin villosum, and Calycotome villosa, but which 
is now more generally and appropriately known 
as Oytisus laniger, was introduced from Spain in 
1821. It is similar in appearance to the thorny 
broom, and, like it, has prickly branches, yellow 
flowers, and pods thickened towards the upper 
suture. 
The cloud-born broom or white retama, Cyti- 
sus nubigenus, formerly Spartium nubigenum, was 
introduced, in the latter part of last century, 
from Teneriffe. Its usual height is about six 
feet; its branches are unarmed; its leaves are 
few in number; and its flowers are white, and 
appear from May till June. Its habit is half 
A rambling but curious notice of it in 
the Philosophical Journal of December 1826, 
says, “The honey made by the bees upon the 
Peak of Teneriffe has long been celebrated. 
Every village in the neighbourhood im the month 
of May earries its bee-hives, which are hollow 
stems of the dragon-tree, and places them in the 
crevices of the rocks. Millions of bees then swarm 
around the large and fragrant white bushes of 
| the white retama, and very soon fill their hive. 
The honey is taken from them twice every sum- 
mer, always in great abundance; and neither 
Hymettus nor Chamouny has ever produced any- 
| thing equal to it, it is so pure and transparent, 
and the taste so aromatic and delicious. Who- 
ever, indeed, would import this bush to the bees 
of Europe, would deserve as well of his country- 
men as he who introduced the vine and fruit- 
trees; and this would be by no means difficult, 
for spartium grows perfectly well here, where 
snow lies almost continually from December till 
the middle of April, and even where the lowness 
of the temperature checks the vegetation of every 
kind of tree. It might thrive extremely well in 
the interior of Norway, in Austria, and Poland. 
But no one has been hitherto successful in rear- 
ing it in Europe; and everything that has been 
said of its flourishing in botanical gardens is er- 
FONCOUS nny 
The white Portugal broom, Cytisws albus, for- 
merly Spartéwm multiflorum, was introduced from 
Portugal about the middle of last century. It 
resembles, in most of its characters, the cloud- 
born broom; but has a much hardier habit, and 
grows unprotectedly in the open ground in Eng- 
land. It has white flowers, and a very ornamen- 
tal appearance. A variety of it with flesh-col- 
oured flowers, C. a. incarnatus, was recently 
introduced from Portugal. Two other species 
from Portugal are the spreading and the large: 
flowered, C. paiens and C, grandijflorus, formerly 
BROOM. 
Spartium patens and Spartiwn grandiflorum— 
Loudon, Marshall, Miller—Bradley’s Husbandry. 
—Mil’s Husbandry —The Farmers Magazine.— 
Jamieson’s Philosophical Journal. 
BROOM,—botanically Spartiwm. A genus of 
shrubby leguminous plants, of the same family 
as cytisus. It is now restricted to three species, 
but was formerly of very considerable extent. 
Seven or eight species at present growing in 
Great Britain, and formerly belonging to it, are 
now assigned to the genus cytisus; about twenty, 
to the genus genista; and two, to the genus aden- 
ocarpus. 
The rush or Spanish broom, Spartiwm junceum, 
was introduced to Great Britain from the south 
of Europe, about the middle of the sixteenth 
century. It is a much superior plant to the Cy- 
tisus scoparius, both as an ornamental shrub, and 
for the various economical purposes, whether of 
forage or manufacture, to which the common 
broom is applied. It usually grows to the height 
of six feet, and may easily be made to attain the 
height of ten. Its branches taper, grow in op- 
posites, and are covered with a smooth green 
bark; its leaves have a fine green colour and a 
spear-shaped outline, but are few in number ; its 
flowers have a yellow colour, are produced in 
loose spikes at the ends of the branches, and 
bloom from July till September; and its pods 
are compressed and contain kidney-shaped seeds. 
The fibre of the Spanish broom is manufactured 
into a very good cloth, by the inhabitants of 
Spain and the south of France. The flax of it is 
prepared by boiling the twigs or most vigorous 
shoots of the preceding year for about an hour 
in water, or by steeping them two or three weeks, | 
according to the.heat of the season, in a pond. 
The flax, after this preparation, may be freely 
peeled or stripped off either by machinery or by 
hand ; and it then requires only to be well wash- 
ed in cold water, well wrung and shaken, and 
hung out in the open air todry. The twigs, af 
ter being stripped of the flax, and boiled for 
some time in water, become tough and beauti- | 
fully white, and are an excellent material for the | 
manufacture of carpet brooms and some other 
articles. 
A double-flowered variety of Spanish broom, | 
S. j. flore pleno, has the same height, habit, root, 
leaves, and other characters as the normal plant, | 
but produces very full double flowers, and does 
not bear any pods. The flowers seldom appear 
till August, and are much less numerous than 
those of the single variety.—The sweet-scented 
broom, Spartium odoratissimum, was introduced 
from Persia in 1834; but is regarded by some 
botanists as only a variety of the Spanish broom. 
—The sharp-leaved species, Spartium acutifolium, 
was recently introduced from Turkey. . 
BROOM,—botanically Genisia. A large genus 
of shrubby leguminous plants, forming the type 
of the subtribe genisteze. No fewer than thirty- 
two genera are included in this subtribe; but at 
