shown for ascribing to it in this passage a sense different from that which it commonly bore. Spartus or Spartum, is admitted to be used by all authors, Greek and Latin, and even by Pliny himself in another passage[1], to denote the Spanish Broom. We learn from Sibthorp, that the Spanish Broom is still called Sparto by the Greeks, and that it grows on dry sandy hills throughout the islands of the Archipelago and the continent of Greece. Sparto was indeed properly the Greek name of this shrub, the Latin name being Genista, and the use of the Greek name in Hispania Citerior may have been owing to the Grecian settlements on that coast, colonized from Marseilles.
Besides the passages of Latin authors referred to by Schneider and Billerbeck, and which it is unnecessary to repeat, the following from Isidore of Seville appears decisive respecting the acceptation of the term.
"Spartus frutex virgosus sine foliis, ab asperitate vocatus; volumina enim funium, quæ ex eo fiunt, aspera sunt." Originum L. xvii. c. 9.
This is the definition of a learned and observant author, who lived in Spain, and who must have been familiar with the facts. "Frutex virgosus sine foliis" is a clear and striking description of the Spanish Broom, the leaves of which are so small as easily to escape observation[2]. The Stipa Tenacissima, on the other hand, is not a shrub with twigs, but a grass, which grows in tufts, the long leaves being as abundant and useful as the stems or straws. Clusius himself (l. c.) in laying down the distinction between the Spartum of the Greeks, which he supposed to be the Spanish Broom, and the Spartum of Pliny, which he supposed to be the Stipa Tenacissima, asserts that the former is a shrub (frutex), the latter a herb with grassy leaves (herba graminacea folia proferens). It is clear, therefore, that the inhabitants of Spain in the time of Isidore
- ↑ See L. xi. 8. where Pliny says, that bees obtain honey and wax from "Spartum," and compare this with Aristotle, Hist. Anim. L. x. 40.
- ↑ Dioscorides also describes the Spanish Broom to be "a shrub bearing long twigs without leaves." Isidore's etymology, deducing Spartus from Asper, is manifestly absurd.
