enotes a well-known household besom or implement wherewith to sweep away dirt, dust, and the like. We say a *birch-broom*, a *hair-broom*, a *rush-broom*, a *heath-broom*. The primitive kind of brooms, from which the denomination is given to all the rest, was made of the *genista* or wild broom growing on commons.

*Broomflower* gives the denomination to an order of knights instituted by St Louis of France on occasion of his marriage. The motto was *Excellat humiles*, and the collar of the order was made up of broom flowers and husks, enamelled and intermixed with *fleurs de lis* of gold, set in open lozenges, enamelled white, chained together; and at it hung a cross florence of gold. This answers to what the French called *Ordre de la Géneste*, from the name of a species of broom so called, different from the common broom, as being lower, the stalk smaller, and leaf narrow: the flower is yellow, and bears a long husk. Some also speak of another order of the *Géneste* or *Broom* established by Br Charles Martel, or rather Charles VI.