ShareThisThey say the only real winners in the California gold rush were the guys who sold the shovels. Correction—the guys who sold the shovels and the whiskey.
Scotch broom untouched by livestock in a well grazed Sierra Nevada pasture.
It is this human desire for inebriation that may explain how Scotch broom made it across the Atlantic and all of North America to the Mother Lode. Most miners panned for gold knee deep in icy streams and knew bone-chilling pain. In winter they experienced real suffering. Whiskey was the drug of choice for self-medication, and if a week’s work could buy a can of peaches or a bottle of rye, the choice was obvious.
We do know that those precious bottles had to be packed in something cheap, springy and readily available. In Scotland, broom plants fit the bill. From Sonora to Sierra City, cases of imported whiskey were opened and the broom packing discarded. It is at these points that the broom invasion likely began.
Both flower and seed pod illustrate that Scotch broom is a member of the pea family.
Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is a large shrub bearing flowers and flat pods that indicate its affiliation with the pea family. Seed pods still attached to the packing material could sprout with the winter rains or lie dormant for up to 30 years. Plants that had supplied Europe with sweeping brooms naturalized in the west and spread like wildfire. You can literally chart the location of every gold-rush settlement by the presence of broom colonies, which remain to this day.
This species is intensely beautiful in bloom but is nearly leafless on green stems the rest of the year. The tiny leaves are borne on stiff straight sticks that make wonderful brooms. But it was a hand-held green whisk broom known as a “bisom”? that made the plants essential to the baker’s craft. In the days of brick ovens, the cooking surface had to be swept out between bread bakings. Dry broom would ignite immediately. Green broom bisom dipped in water resisted burning long enough to do the job. Clearly a baker required a good deal of living broom growing nearby to ensure a plentiful supply. So did the whiskey shipper.
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Stiff twigs that flex rather than break made this plant a favorite for brooms and as a resilient packing material.
Today there is a great struggle to stop the steady advance of broom. Aided by runoff, animals and even insects, broom’s encroachment is alarmingly rapid where conditions are right. For homeowners in these areas, broom can disfigure surrounding wild lands, resulting in a monoculture. Wild plants distributing seed into the cultivated landscapes make it a pernicious weed.
Control can be as seriously challenging because there are no simple solutions. Physical removal—simply pulling or grubbing out—will eliminate plants, but the soil disturbance can result in a plethora of new seedlings. Fortunately, seedlings are easy to pull while still young. Programs of biological controls have introduced a stem miner and seed beetle with limited success. Goats have proved more effective but require direct management. Herbicides such as Roundup have been widely used, but toxicity, particularly in wildland ecosystems, creates a new set of challenges. An integrated approach of all three methods is being applied.
Scotch broom is a true “planta non grata”? in the West. If it encroaches onto your property or landscape, make eradication a priority. And listen to your mother when she says drinking isn’t a good idea. If miners had been bigger on sobriety, the broom would have thankfully stayed home.
For data on Scotch broom, areas where it is a noxious weed and how to eradicate, log on to the informative  USDA PLANTS database: http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=CYSC4
