Ononis speciosa Lag.
Eng.: Restharrow. Spa.: Garbancillo, rascavieja. Fre.: Bugrane.
Shrub up to 1.5 m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, evergreen, erect and slightly ramose. Stems and old branches with brownish bark, finally glabrous or with eglandular hairs arranged in a line. Young branchlets herbaceous, green, densely puberulous-glandular. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate, petiolate, with stipules partially fused to the petiole, leaflets (7)10-35 × 4-25 mm, somewhat thick, elliptic to suborbicular, serrated, lateral leaflets sessile and central leaflet petiolulate, green, glabrous or with glands, highly viscous, like the branchlets and inflorescences. Inflorescences spiciform, terminal, long and dense, with numerous subsessile flowers arranged solitary in the axils of each bract —without leaflets, ovate, persistent—. Calyx 8-12 mm, villous, with glanduliferous and eglandular hair, greenish, deeply split into 5 linear-lanceolate teeth, slightly longer than the tube. Corolla 11-18 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with a glabrous standard and often with purple veins, wings and keel roughly of the same length but without coloured veins, keel falcate. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy and capitated stigma. Pod 6-7.5 mm, ± ovoid, hairy, included in the calyx or slightly exserted, with 1-2 seeds. Seeds c.
3 mm, globose, smooth, brown or greenish.
Flowering:
May to June.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Forests and thickets on various types of terrains, often loamy, siliceous, with high edaphic humidity, usually along permanent or temporary rivers and streams.
Distribution:
It is a Betic-Rif endemic, with a distribution range extending along southern mainland Spain, and the mountains with subhumid bioclimate of the central Rif (high Valley of Ouergha, Bured, Targuist, Aknul, etc.) in Morocco.
Conservation status:
A rare but widely distributed species, it is not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.