Retama sphaerocarpa (L.) Boiss.
Spartium sphaerocarpum L., Lygos sphaerocarpa (L.) Heywood, R. atlantica Pomel, R. sphaerocarpa f. atlantica (Pomel) Batt., R. sphaerocarpa var. atlantica (Pomel) Maire
Eng.: Yellow broom. Spa.: Retama, retama amarilla, retama común. Fre.: Retam à fruits globuleux. Ara.: Retem, rtem, halobi, belula. Tam.: Aluggu.
Shrub up to 1.5-2 m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, with stems and branches highly branched from the base, upright at first and then somewhat pendulous, very flexible, with few leaves. Stems and branches with brown-green bark. Young branchlets with 8-11 ribs with inverted V-shape, sericeous-silvery at first and then greenish, glabrous. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, subsessile, very quickly deciduous, with stipules, with leaflet 6-11 mm, lanceolate, entire, laxly sericeous-silvery on both sides. Inflorescence racemose, lax, axillary, with 8-17 flowers, briefly pedicellate, each accompanied by 2 promptly caducous bracteoles. Calyx 2.5-3.2 mm, obconic to subglobose, bilabiate, with lips shorter than the tube, the upper lip bipartite and the lower lip tridentate, whitish-green, glabrous. Corolla 4-5 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with an ovate standard, rounded or emarginate at the apex, glabrous, and wings and keel as long as the standard or shorter. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary glabrous, and globose stigma. Pod 7-13 × 5-8 mm, ovoid, subglobose or subreniform, glabrous, green first and then yellowish-brown, with 1(2) seeds that when mature they remain loose inside. Seeds 3.5-8 mm, ovoid, reniform, smooth, black.
Flowering:
April to July.
Fruiting:
July to September.
Habitat:
Thickets and steppes, in arid, semiarid and dry bioclimates. Very resistant to the continental Mediterranean climate, and indifferent to the nature of the substrate. In the studied territory it is always a species of dry continental inland areas.
Distribution:
Most of the Iberian Peninsula and NW Africa: Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia. It spreads on the territory through the eastern and southern Middle Atlas, eastern High Atlas, plateaux and steppic mountains of eastern Morocco and Algeria, Saharan Atlas, Aures and mountains of central Tunisia (from the mountains of the Dorsal up to Jebel Bu Hedma). In a few areas it reaches the northern Sahara. Sauvage (1946) cited the species in Bir el Hamar (eastern Zemmour) (NW corner of the Sahara).
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widespread species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.