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Ononis atlantica Ball

Eng.: Restharrow.   Spa.: Garbancillera borde.   Fre.: Bugrane.   Ara.: Afsdad.

Shrub up to 0.3(0.5) m in height, spiny, hermaphrodite, evergreen, cushion-shaped, highly branched from the base. Stems and old branches with greyish-brown bark, finally glabrous. Young branchlets green, densely puberulous-glanduliferous. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate, petiolate, with stipules partially fused to the petiole, leaflets 5-10 × 2.5-5 mm, somewhat thick, obovate-cuneate, with apex rounded or retuse, dentate at least in the distal half, sessile, green, puberulous-glanduliferous. Inflorescences axillary, very reduced, each with 1 flower at the end of the peduncle, which persists and becomes spiny after flowering. Calyx c. 5 mm, herbaceous, puberulent-glandular, greenish, deeply split into 5 teeth, linear-lanceolate, longer than the tube and usually tinted brown. Corolla c. 12 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with glabrous standard and usually with purple nerves only at the base, wings and keel roughly the same length, the keel falcate. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy and capitated stigma. Pod 10-14 × 3-4.5 mm, oblong, puberulent-glanduliferous, elliptic in cross section, exserted, with 1-2 seeds. Seeds c. 2 mm, globose, finely tuberculate, brown.