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.