Gardeners Dictionary: Genista

Gardeners Dictionary:
containing The Best and Newest Methods of Cultivating and Improving The Kitchen, Fruit, Flower Garden, and Nursery; As also for Performing the Practical Parts of Agriculture: Including The Management of Vineyards, With the Methods of Making and Preserving Wine, According to the present Practice of The most skilful Vignerons in the several Wine Countries in Europe.

Together with Directions for propagating and improving, From real Practice and Experience, All sorts of Timber Trees.

The Eight Edition,
Revised and Altered according to the latest System of Botany; and Embellished with several Copper-Plates, which were not in some former Editions.

By Philip Miller, F. R. S.
Gardener tothe Worshipdul Company of Apothecaries, at their Botanic Garden in Chelsea, and Member of the Botanic Academy at Florence.

London,
Printed for the Author;
M. DCC. LXVIII.

(Lontoo 1768)


GENISTA. Lin. Gen. Plant. 766. Tourn. Inst. R. H. 643. tab. 412. Broom; in French, Genét.

The Characters are,
The empalement of the flower is of one leaf, tubulous, and divided into two lips; the upper lip is deeply cut into two, and the under into three equal parts. The flower is of the butterfly kind; the standard is oval, acute, and remote from the keel, being wholly reflexed; the wings are a little shorter than the standard, and are loose: the keel is erect, and longer than the standard, and is indented at the top. It hath ten stamina joined in two bodies, which are situated in the keel, terminated by single summits. In the center is an oblong germen, supporting an ascending stule, crowned by an acute twisted stigma. The germen afterward becomes a roundish turgid pod with one cell, opening with two valves, inclosing kidney-shaped seeds.

This genus of plants is ranged in the third section of Linnæus's seventeenth class, which includes the plants with flowers having ten stamina, joined in two bodies; and to this he adds some of Tournefor's species of Spartium, and the Genistella of Tournefort.

1. GENISTA (Sagittalis) ramis ancipitibus articulatis, foliis ovato-lanceolatis. Hort. Cliff. 355. Jointed Broom, with two-edged branches, and jointed, oval, spear-shaped leaves. Chamæ Genista sagittalis. C. B. P. 395. Dwarf arrow-shaped Broom.

2. GENISTA (Florida) foliis lanceolatis, ramis striatis teretibus recemis secundis. Hort. Cliff. 355. Broom with spear-shaped leaves, and erect taper branches abounding with flowers. Genista tinctoria Hispanica. C. B. P. 395. Spanish Dyers Broom.

3. GENISTA (Tinctoria) foliis lanceolatis glabris ramis striatis teretibus erectis. Hort. Cliff. 355. Broom with spear-shaped leaves which are acute, and taper channeled branches proceeding from the side of the stalk. Genista tinctoria Germanica. C. B. P. 395. Common Dyers Broom, or Wood-waxen.

4. GENISTA (Purgans) spinis terminalibus, ramis teretibus striatis, foliis lanceolatis simplicibus pubescentibus. Lin. Sp. 999. Broom with taper-streaked branches terminated by spines, and simple, spear-shaped, hairy leaves. Genisha sive spartium purgans. J. B. 1. p. 404.

5. GENISTA (Candicans) foliis ternatis subtus villosis, pedunculis lateralibus subwuinwuefloris foliatis, leguminibus hirsutis. Amoen. Acad. 4. p. 284. Trifoliate Broom with hairy leaves, foot-stalks from the side of the branches having five flowers, and hairy pods. Cytisus Monspessulanus, medicæ folio, siliquis dense congestis & villosis. Tourn. Inst. 649.

6. GENISTA (Tridentata) ramis triquetris subarticulatis, foliis tricuspidatis. Lin. Sp. Plant. 710. Broom with three-cornered jointed branches, and leaves ending in three points. Genistella fruticola Lusitanica. Tourn. Inst. 646. Shrubby Portugal Dyers Broom.

7. GENISTA (Pilosa) foliis lanceolatis obtusis, caule tuberculato decumbente. Hort. Cliff. 355. Broom with obtuse spear-shaped leaves, and a declining stalk having tubercles. This is the Genista ramosa, foliis Hyperici. C.B. P. Branchin Broom with leaves like St. Johnwort.

8. GENISTA (Anglica) spinis simplicibus, ramis floriferis inermibus, foliis lanceolatis. Hort. Cliff. 355. Broom with single spines, flower-branches without spines, and spear-shaped leaves. Genista spartium minus Anglicum. Tourn. Inst. R. H. 645. Small English Broom, called Petty Whin.

9. GENISTA (Hispanica) spinis decompositis, ramis floriferis, inermibus, foliis lanceolatis. Lin. Sp. Plant. 711. Broom with decompounded spines, flower-branches without spines, and narrow hairy leaves. Genista spinosa minor Hispanica villosissima. C. B. P. 395. Most hairy, small, Spanish, prickly Broom.

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The third sort grows naturally in England. This hath shrubby stalks, which rise about three feet high, garnished with spear-shaped leaves, which are broader, and end in sharper points than those of the former; the brances come out from the side of the stalks, almost their whole length, and do not grow so upright as those of the second; these are terminated by loose spikes of yellow flowers, which are succeeded by pods like those of the second sort. It flowers, and the seeds are ripe about the same time as the former. The brances of the plant are used by the dyers, to give a yellow colour, from whence it is called Dyers Broom, Green-wood, Wood-waxen, or Dyers-weed.