Spanish broom

Genista hispanica, the Spanish broom or Spanish gorse (a distinct species from Spartium junceum, which is also commonly called Spanish broom), is a low spiny deciduous shrub in the family Fabaceae native to the western Mediterranean, including northern Spain, southern France, and the Italian peninsula, where it grows on dry rocky slopes, garrigue, calcareous scrub, and open pine-oak woodland edges. The plant is densely branched and forms compact rounded mounds 30-80 cm tall and as wide, with stiff green photosynthetic stems that are pubescent when young and bear numerous stout branched spines 1-3 cm long, giving the shrub a formidable defended structure. The leaves are very small, simple, narrowly lanceolate, 5-10 mm long, ephemeral and present mainly on young growth, falling early so that most photosynthesis is carried out by the green stems and spines. The flowers are typical small bright yellow pea-flowers, 1-1.2 cm long, borne in dense leafy terminal racemes 2-5 cm long on the short side shoots, the standard, wings, and keel all yellow; flowering is profuse in late spring (May-June) and produces a sheet of golden colour. The fruit is a small flattened pod 1-2 cm long containing 2-4 brown kidney-shaped seeds.