Alas! its to thy neebor sweet, Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet! Wi spreckled breast, When upward springing, blythe, to greet The purpling east. Cauld blew the bitter biting north Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth, Amid the storm, Scarce rear'd above thy parent earth, Thy tender form. The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, High sheltering woods and wa's maun shield; But thou, beneath the random beild O'clod or stane, Adorns the histie stibble-field, Unseen, alane. There, in thy scanty mantle clad, In humble guise; But now the share uptears thy bed, And low thou lies! Such is the fate of artless maid, By love's simplicity betray'd, And guileless trust; Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid Low i' the dust. Such is the fate of simple bard, On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd! Of prudent lore, Till billows rage, and gales blow hard, And whelm him o'er ! Such fate to suffering worth is given, To misery's brink, Till, wrench'd of every stay but heaven, He ruin'd sink! E'en thou, who mourn'st the daisy's fate, Stern ruin's ploughshare drives elate, Full on thy bloom, Till, crush'd beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be thy doom. Spartium scoparium. Common Broom. Diadelphia Decandria. Calyx extending downwards, two-lipped. Filaments adhering to the germen. Summit woolly above. Leaves in threes, and solitary. Branches without prickles, angular. Leaves and leaf-stalks slightly hairy. Calyx the upper segment with two teeth larger than those of the lower. Blossom-standard nearly circular, slightly notched at the end. Keel the petals rather hooked, united at the lower edge by an intertexture of very fine, soft, woolly hairs. Stamens four long and six short. Style bowed almost into a circle, and after flowering, into a spiral; the very end, which one would be inclined to regard as the summit, not hairy. Blossom yellow.-Withering. THIS gay shrub, with its bright yellow blossoms, like chains of gold hung upon its branches, is too well known to require further description. It was formerly called Planta Genista, and under this name possesses much historical interest, as from hence was derived the word Plantagenet. Géfroi, duke of Anjou, father of our Henry the Second, was in the practice of wearing a sprig of Planta Genista in his cap; or, as an old writer quaintly expresses it, "he wore commonly a broom-stalke in his bonnet;" and from this circumstance he acquired the name of Plantagenet, which he transmitted to his princely descendants, who all bore it, from Henry, who has been called the first royal sprig of Genista, down to Richard the Third, the last degenerate scion of the plant of Anjou. |