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We found however a few hymenoptera adhering to masses of sulphur moistened with sulphurous acid, and lining the mouths of the funnels. These are bees, which appear to have been attracted by the flowers of the Spartium nubigenum, and which oblique currents of air had carried up to these high regions, like the butterflies found by M. Ramond at the top of Mont Perdu.
The scattered growths were composed of the broomy Codeso and Retama. Some travellers divide it into two species, Spartium monospermum and S. nubigenum. The bush, 9 to 10 feet tall by 7 to 15 inches diameter, is easily distinguished from the Codeso by its denser and deeper green.
It grows to the height of nine feet, and is loaded with odoriferous flowers, with which the goat hunters, that we met in our road, had decorated their hats. The goats of the peak, which are of a deep brown colour, are reckoned delicious food; they browse on the spartium, and have run wild in the deserts from time immemorial.
Eden states that in the year 1705 he saw little flames, which, according to the doctrine of the naturalists of his time, he attributes to sulphurous exhalations igniting spontaneously. We continued to ascend, till we came to the rock of La Gayta and to Portillo: traversing this narrow pass between two basaltic hills, we entered the great plain of Spartium.
In the Spartium Scoparium, or common broom, I have lately observed a curious circumstance, the males or stamens are in two sets, one set rising a quarter of an inch above the other; the upper set does not arrive at their maturity so soon as the lower, and the stigma, or head of the female, is produced amongst the upper or immature set; but as soon as the pistil grows tall enough to burst open the keel-leaf, or hood of the flower, it bends itself round in an instant, like a French horn, and inserts its head, or stigma, amongst the lower or mature set of males.
The only tree in this country in a wild state, is growing in Bewdley Forest, Worcester-shire. SPARTIUM Scoparium. BROOM. Is a very ornamental plant, and is used for making besoms. It was once considered as a specific in the cure of dropsy, but is now seldom used for medicial purposes. STAPHYLEA pinnata. BLADDER-NUT. This is not a common plant in this country.
We suffered much from the suffocating dust of the pumice-stone, in which we were continually enveloped. In the midst of this plain are tufts of the retama, which is the Spartium nubigenum of Aiton. M. de Martiniere, one of the botanists who perished in the expedition of Laperouse, wished to introduce this beautiful shrub into Languedoc, where firewood is very scarce.
D. The leaves have a moderately astringent bitter taste, and hence prove serviceable in debility and laxity of the viscera, and disorders proceeding from that cause. SPARTIUM scoparium. BROOM. Tops and Seeds. L. D.-These have a nauseous bitter taste: decoctions of them loosen the belly, promote urine, and stand recommended in hydropic cases.
The best batches of eggs which I have found have been laid upon twigs of the Spartium junceum, which are like straws stuffed with pith, and especially on the upper twigs of the Asphodelus cerasiferus, which rises nearly a yard from the ground before ramifying. It is essential that the support, no matter what its nature, should be dead and perfectly dry.
Forests of laurel, rhamnus, and arbutus, divide the ericas from the rising grounds planted with vines and fruit trees. A rich carpet of verdure extends from the plain of spartium, and the zone of the alpine plants even to the groups of the date tree and the musa, at the feet of which the ocean appears to roll.
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