Paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris, or, A garden of all sorts of pleasant flowers which our English ayre will permitt to be noursed vp / a kitchen garden of all manner of herbes, rootes & fruites for meate or sauce vsed with vs, and, an orchard of all sorte of fruitbearing trees and shrubbes fit for our land, together with the right orderinge, planting & preseruing of them and their vses & vertues

Chap. CXXIII.
Spartum Hispanicum frutex. Spanish Broome.

Although Clusius and others haue found diuers sorts of this shrubby Spartum or Spanish Broome, yet because our Climate will nourse vp none of them, and euen this very hardly, I shall leaue all others, and describe vnto you this one only in this manner: Spanish Broome groweth to bee fiue or sixe foote high, with a woody stemme below, couered with a darke gray, or ash-coloured barke, and hauing aboue many pliant, long and slender greene twigs, whereon in the beginning of the yeare are set many small long greene leaues, which fall away quickly, not abiding long on; towards the tops of these branches grow the flowers, fashioned like vnto Broom flowers, but larger, as yellow as they, and smelling very well; after which come small long cods, crested at the backe, wherein is contained blackish flat seede, fashioned very like vnto the Kidney beanes: the roote is woody, dispersing it selfe diuers waies.

The Place.

This groweth naturally in many places of France, Spaine and Italie, wee haue it as an ornament in our Gardens, among other delightfull plants, to please the senses of sight and smelling.

The Time.

It flowreth in the end of May, or beginning of Iune, and beareth seede, which ripeneth not with vs vntill it be late.

The Names.

It is called Spartium Græcorum, and Spartum frutex, to distinguish it from the sedge or rush, that is so called also. Of some it is called Genista, and thought not to differ from the other Genista, but they are much deceiued; for euen in Spaine and Italie, the ordinary Genista or Broome groweth with it, which is not pliant, and fit to binde Vines, or such like things withall as this is.

The Vertues.

There is little vse hereof in Physicke, by reason of the dangerous qualitie of vomiting, which it doth procure to them that take it inwardly: but being applyed outwardly, it is found to helpe the Sciaticæ or paine of the hippes.

1	Colutæa vulgaris. Ordinary bastard Sene.
2	Periploca recta Virginiana. Virginian Silke.
3	Colutæa Scorpioides. Scorpion bastard Sene.
4	Spartum Hispanicum. Spanish Broome.
5	Ligustrum. Priuet.
6	Saluia variegata. Party coloured Sage.
7	Maiorana aurea. Guilded Marierome.