CHAPTER XIII.

SPARTUM, OR SPANISH BROOM.

CLOTH MANUFACTURED FROM BROOM BARK, NETTLE, AND BULBOUS PLANT.--TESTIMONY OF GREEK AND LATIN AUTHORS.

Authority for Spanish Broom--Stipa Tenacissima--Cloth made from Broom-bark--Albania--Italy--France--Mode of preparing the fibre for weaving--Pliny’s account of Spartum--Bulbous plant--Its fibrous coats--Pliny’s translation of Theophrastus--Socks and garments--Size of the bulb--Its genus or species not sufficiently defined--Remarks of various modern writers on this plant--Interesting communications of Dr. Daniel Stebbins, of Northampton, Mass. to Hon. H. L. Ellsworth.

Pliny says, that “in the part of Hispania Citerior about New Carthage whole mountains were covered with Spartum; that the natives made mattresses, shoes, _and coarse garments of it_, also fires and torches; and that its tender tops were eaten by animals[206].” He also says, that it grows spontaneously where nothing else will grow, and that it is “the rush of a dry soil.”

[206] L. xix. c. 2.

The question now arises, what plant Pliny intended to describe. Clusius, who travelled in Spain chiefly with a view to botany, supposed Pliny’s “Spartum” to be the tough grass, used in every part of Spain for making mats, baskets, &c., which Linnæus afterwards called Stipa Tenacissima[207]. It is not surprising, that the opinion of so eminent a botanist as Clusius has been generally adopted. It is, however, far more probable, that the plant, which Pliny intended to speak of, was the Spartium Junceum, _Linn._, so familiarly known under the name of Spanish Broom.

[207] Clusii Plant. Rar. Historia, L. vi. p. 219. 220.

In the first place, the name _Spartum_ should be considered as decisive of the question, unless some sufficient reason can be 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[208], 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.

[208] 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.

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[209]. 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 still used the term _Spartus_ in its original acceptation, viz. to denote the Spartium Junceum of Linnæus.

[209] 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.

When the Stipa Tenacissima was brought into use for making ropes and for other purposes, for which the Spanish Broom was employed, the name of the latter would naturally be extended to the former, and we may thus account for the fact that the Stipa Tenacissima is now universally known in Spain by the name _Esparto_. Indeed it is possible, that the employment of the Stipa Tenacissima for these purposes may have been as ancient as the time of Pliny; and his use of the word “_herba_” in describing it, as well as the locality which he assigns to it, the hilly country about Carthage, favors the common interpretation, and perhaps even authorizes the conclusion, that his account is the result of confounding the two plants together, so that he says of one supposed plant things, which were partly true of both, and partly applicable either to the Spanish Broom, or to the Stipa Tenacissima only. But, even if this be admitted, it is still possible that the plant, from whose fibres the “_pastorum vestis_” was manufactured, was not the grassy Stipa, but the shrub, the Spanish Broom.

In order to establish this point we now proceed to mention the evidence respecting the application of it to such uses. It has been employed for making cloth in Turkey, in Italy, and the South of France, but in circumstances, which were either specially favorable to the manufacture, or where flax could not be cultivated. It is manufactured into shirts in Albania according to Dr. Sibthorp[210]. Nearly a century ago, Pope Benedict XIV. brought a colony of Albanians to inhabit a barren and desolate portion of his territory on the sea-coast. Here they obtained a very fine, strong, durable thread from the Broom and the _Nettle_, and used it, when woven, in place of linen[211]. Trombelli, who relates this fact, also gives an account of the manufacture of broom-bark in the vicinity of Lucca, where the hills, called Monte Cascia, are covered with this plant[212]. “Formerly,” he says, “the people derived no other advantage from the shrub than to feed sheep and goats with it, and to heat their stoves and furnaces. But their ingenuity and industry have now made it far more profitable. They steep the twigs for some days in the thermal waters of Bagno a Acqua near Lucca. _After this process the bark is easily stript off, and it is then combed and otherwise treated like flax._ It becomes finer than hemp could be made; it is easily _dyed_ of _any_ color, and may be used for garments of _any_ kind[213].” In the vicinity of Pisa we find that the twigs of the Spanish Broom were in like manner soaked in the thermal waters, and that a coarse cloth was manufactured from the bark[214].

[210] Flora Græca, No. 671.

[211] Trombelli, Bononiensis Scient. atque Artium Instituti Commentarii, tom. vi. p. 118.

[212] Trombelli calls the plant Genista, and says it is the kind called by botanists “Genista juncea flore luteo.” This is the Spartium Junceum of Linnæus. See Ray, Catal. Stirp. Europ. and Scopoli, Flora Carniolica, 1772, tom. i. No. 870.

[213] Bononiensis Scientiarum atque Artium Instituti Commentarii, tom. iv. Bonon. 1757, p. 349-351. A similar account of the manufacture of the “Teladi Ginestia” at Bagno a Acqua is given by Mr. John Strange, who says he had sent an account of it to the Society for encouraging Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. Lettera sopra l’Origine della carta naturale di Cortona, Pisa 1764. p. 79.

[214] Mém. de l’Académie des Sciences, Paris 1763.

But the manufacture has been carried to a far greater extent in the South of France. In the _Journal de Physique_, _Tom._ 30. _4to._ An. 1787. p. 294., is a paper by _Broussonet Sur la culture et les usages économiques du Genêt d’Espagne_. A minute and highly curious account is here given of the mode of preparing the fibres, which is practised by the inhabitants of all the villages in the vicinity of Lodêve in Bas Languedoc. The shrub abounds on the barren hills of that region, and all that the people do to favor its growth is to sow the seed in the driest places, where scarce any other plant can vegetate. After being cut, the twigs are dried in the sun, then beaten, macerated in water, and treated in the same way as flax or hemp (See Zincke’s process,