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Cytisus grandiflorus (Brot.) DC.

Spartium grandiflorum Brot., Sarothamnus grandiflorus (Brot.) Webb.

Eng.: Broom.   Spa.: Escoba.   Fre.: Cytise, genêt à balais.

Shrub up to 3 m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, deciduous, highly branched from the base, with erect stems. Stems and old branches with bark fissured longitudinally, brownish, glabrous. Young branchlets longitudinally ribbed, with 5(7) ribs in an inverted V-shape, slightly hairy, green. Leaves unifoliolate, without stipules, sessile or almost sessile, solitary in macroblasts, with leaf blades up to 24 × 6 mm, narrowly elliptical or oblanceolate, sparsely hairy at first then glabrous, green. Often, leaves are also gathered in small groups at the end of brachyblasts and then with a wider leaf blade; and sometimes the upper leaves unifoliolate and the leaves of the brachyblasts of lower branches trifoliolate or bifoliolate, petiolate, with petiole 2-7 mm, and leaflets ovate or oblanceolate. Flowers solitary or geminate on branchlets of the current year, axillary, with pedicel 5-16 mm, glabrous, with 2-3 bracteoles about halfway. Calyx 5-7 mm, campanulate, glabrous, green at first and then brownish-black, bilabiate, the upper lip with 2 small teeth at the tip and the lower lip with 3, also very small, the lower lip longer than the upper lip. Corolla (14)17-25 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with an ovate-suborbicular standard, glabrous, wings and keel subequal in size to the standard, the keel with the tip very recurved upwards. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary densely villous, and stigma capitate. Pod (15)25-45 × (5)7-10 mm, subrhomboid, highly compressed, green at first and then black, very villous, with 2-13 seeds. Seeds 2.2-4.5 mm, ovoid, somewhat compressed, smooth, reddish-brown or yellowish-brown.

Flowering:

April to June.

 

Fruiting:

June to August.

Habitat:

Forests and thickets, usually on siliceous soils, in subhumid and humid bioclimate; it reaches 2,500 m above sea level.

Distribution:

Ibero-Mauritanian endemism, which spans across southern and western areas of the Iberian Peninsula, and NW Morocco. In the latter, it is distributed across the Rif, Zaïan, Middle Atlas and High Atlas, and reaches towards the E to Mount Gurugú, near Melilla.

Observations:

In the territory there are 2 recognised subspecies. C. grandiflorus (Brot.) DC. subsp. grandiflorus [Sarothamnus arboreus var. barbarus Jahand. & Maire, C. barbarus (Jahand. & Maire) Maire, C. grandiflorus subsp. barbarus (Jahand. & Maire) Maire], the most widespread, groups plants with leaves unifoliolate at the top and trifoliolate at the bottom. In contrast, C. grandiflorus subsp. haplophyllus (Maire & Sennen) Maire (C. barbarus var. haplophyllus Maire & Sennen), includes plants with all leaves unifoliolate, with flowers and fruit at the larger end of the variation set for the species. The latter is only found on Mount Gurugú near Melilla and in the Rif (Beni Seddat).

Conservation status:

A relatively common and widely distributed species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

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