Authors have given to this plant the name of Scorpion Senna, its
seed-vessels, from their slender and jointed appearance, bearing some
resemblance to the tail of a scorpion.
It is a native of France and Germany, and a very old inhabitant of our
gardens, having been cultivated by Gerard in 1596; it is of low and slow
growth: there is a shrub of it in the Apothecaries Garden, Chelsea,
which grew there in the time of Miller, and which now is not more than
five feet high.
In the nurseries we have observed two varieties of it, one in which the
flowers have been tinged with bright red inclining to orange and which
is by far the most common, the other with flowers wholly yellow,
scarcely worth cultivating.
Its blossoms are produced in May and June, and sometimes again in
autumn; neatly trained to a wall or paling, it makes a beautiful
appearance when in flower, the shortness of its shoots renders it a very
proper object for this purpose.
Is propagated by seeds, layers, and cuttings; the first are not produced
in any great plenty with us.
The leaves by a proper fermentation are said to produce a dye like that
of Indigo.
[446]
[Illustration: Nº. 446]
Psoralea Bracteata. Oval-Spiked Psoralea.
_Class and Order._
Diadelphia Decandria.
_Generic Character._
_Cal._ punctis callosis adspersus longitudine leguminis monspermi.
_Specific Character and Synonyms._
PSORALEA _bracteata_ foliis ternatis obovatis recurvato-mucronatis,
mucronatis, spicis ovatis. _Linn. Mant. 264._ _Berg. Cap. 224._
_Ait. Kew. v. 3. p. 79._