cottages, at once delights the eye and gratifies the smell by the exquisite fragrance of its blossoms; whilst it confers on those humble dwellings a character of cheerfulness unknown in other countries.

A Honeysuckle, on the sunny side,

Hung round the lattices its fragrant trumpets.

LANDON.

Copious of flowers, the woodbine pale and wan,
But well compensating her sickly looks
With never cloying odours, early and late.

COWPER.

It begins to flower in May, and continues to put forth its blossoms till the end of summer.

BROOM.

HUMILITY.

In the year 1234, St. Louis of France, after the coronation of his queen, chose the flower of this plant as the insignia of a new order of knighthood. The members of this order wore a chain composed of flowers of the Broom entwined with white enamelled lilies, from which was suspended a gold cross with the inscription: Exaltat humiles- He exalteth the humble." With this order he associated a body-guard, consisting of one hundred nobles, on the back and front of whose coat was likewise embroidered a Broom flower, over which a hand issuing from the clouds held a crown, with the inscription: Deus exaltat humiles-" God exalteth the humble."

This plant, called in Latin Genista, and in French Genet, gave the name of Plantagenet to the sovereigns of England for several centuries. Lemon, in his " English Etymology," says:

"Fourteen princes of the family of Plantagenet have sate on the throne of England for upwards of three hundred years, and yet very few of our countrymen have known either the reason of that appellation or the etymology of it: but history tells us that Geoffry, Count of Anjou, acquired the surname of Plantagenet from the incident of his wearing a sprig of Broom on his helmet on a day of battle. This Geoffry was second husband to Matilda, or Maud, Empress of Germany, and daughter of Henry I. of England, and from this Plantagenet family were descended all our Edwards and Henries."

Skinner assigns a different origin to this illustrious name. He tells us that "the house of Anjou derived the name of Plantagenet from a prince thereof, who, having killed his brother to enjoy his principality, afterwards repented, and made a voyage to the Holy Land to expiate his crime, scourging himself every night with a rod made of the plant Genet, Genista, Broom.” And we are told elsewhere that he was nicknamed Plantagenet from the use which he had made of the Broom. of Broom, with

There are three

THE

yellow, 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.

The purple heath and golden broom,
Which sceut the passing gale.

LANDON.

MONTGOMERY.

The Broom and the furze are perpetually associated. Indeed, the latter is sometimes called by botanists Genista Spinosa—the thorny Broom, and provincially whin, or gorse. It grows abundantly 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.

All the air is filled with sound,

Soft, and sultry, and profound; Murmurs through the shadowy grass