Large genus of stiff or spiny evergreen or deciduous Old World shrubs broom

Usage examples of cytisus.

It is a rule of wide generality, that whenever there is any difference in the degree of exposure to radiation between the upper and the lower surfaces of leaves and leaflets, it is the upper which is the least exposed, as may be seen in Lotus, Cytisus, Trifolium, and other genera.

A mass of flowers of all species and color flung their fragrance to the breeze, while a cytisus covered with yellow clusters scattered its fine pollen abroad, a golden cloud, with an odor of honey that bore its balmy seed across space, similar to the sachet-powders of perfumers.

Cytisus fragrans: apogeotropic movement of stem from 10o beneath to 60o above horizon, traced on vertical glass, from 8.

Gerrard discovered an alkaloid in the seeds, more powerful as a purgative than the Sparteine obtained from Cytisus scoparius (Link) (Pharm.

The generic name Cytisus is said to be a corruption of the name of a Greek island, Cythnus, where Broom abounded, though it is probable that the Broom known to the ancients, and mentioned by Pliny and by Virgil under the name of Genista, was another species, the Spanish Broom, Spartium junceum, as the Common Broom is in Greece and not found in Southern and Eastern Europe, being chiefly a native of Western, Northern and Central Europe.