Cytisus pulvinatus Quézel
Chamaecytisus pulvinatus (Quézel) Raynaud
Shrub up to 1.3 m in height, spinescent, cushion-shaped, intricate, highly branched from the base, with stem and branches sharp, hermaphrodite. Stems and old branches with smooth or slightly rough bark, brown or olive-brown. Young branchlets ± rounded in cross section, pale green, appressed-sericeous. Leaves trifoliolate, petioles, alternate or in fascicles, without stipules, with leaflets 4-5 × c. 3.5 mm, obovate, obtuse, attenuated at the base, hairy along margins and on the underside, dark green. Flowers in small groups of 2-4, axillary, pedicellate. Calyx 8-9 mm, campanulate-cylindrical, bilabiate, with serrated lips, upper lip with 2 teeth 15-1.8 mm, and the lower lip with 3 teeth, sericeous. Corolla 13-16 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with a suborbicular standard, emarginate, slightly longer than the wings and the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary glabrous. Pod glabrescent.
Flowering:
(April) May to July.
Fruiting:
June to September.
Habitat:
Xerophytic thickets on mid to high mountains, between 2,800-3,200 m above sea level.
Distribution:
Endemic to Morocco, in the M’Korn Massif, NW of Bulman of Dades (central High Atlas).
Observations:
A not very well known taxon, from which only the type is known, and from which only the information already mentioned above can be obtained, that was mostly collected by the author that originally described the species.
Conservation status:
A very rare and localised species; Quézel, when describing it in 1954, said it was relatively abundant in the thickets of the northern slope of Jebel Korn. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species it is listed as Data Deficient (DD) at global level (Contu, 2012).