Shrubby scorpion-vetch

Coronilla valentina, the shrubby scorpion-vetch or Mediterranean crown-vetch, is an evergreen shrub in the family Fabaceae growing 0.8-2 m tall and native to the western and central Mediterranean basin from Portugal and Morocco to Greece and the Adriatic. The plant forms a rounded, much-branched bush with smooth grey-green bark and pinnate compound leaves 4-8 cm long composed of 5-13 obovate to oblong leaflets, each 8-20 mm long, glaucous below and rounded or slightly notched at the apex. The leaves are arranged alternately and are subtended by conspicuous leafy stipules. From late winter through spring the shrub bears profuse axillary umbels of 4-14 fragrant flowers held on slender peduncles longer than the leaves. Each pea-like flower is bright golden yellow, 7-12 mm long, with the standard, wings and keel of similar colour and the keel beak slightly curved. The fruit is a slender, cylindrical, longitudinally ribbed legume 2-5 cm long that breaks into 4-10 one-seeded segments at maturity. It inhabits dry rocky slopes, garrigue, maquis and pine woodland on calcareous soils, and is widely grown as an ornamental, including the popular glaucous-leaved subspecies glauca.