Genista ferox (Poir.) Dum. Cours.
Spartium ferox Poir., G. salditana Pomel, G. ferox var. salditana (Pomel) Batt.
Spa.: Aliaga, genista. Fre.: Genêt féroce. Ara.: Guendul.
Shrub up to 3(4) m in height, sparsely spiny, hermaphrodite, highly branched, with erect stem, only slightly foliose. Stems and old branches with bark brown or brownish, longitudinally fissured, turning glabrous. Young branchlets striated longitudinally, sericeous, turning hairy (at least in the grooves), ending in a spincescent or sharp tip, not rigid. Leaves alternate, usually unifoliolate but sometimes also trifoliolate, stipulate —stipular body 3 ribs—, subsessile, with leaflets 10-25 × 2-5 mm, oblong-lanceolate or oblong-obovate, usually mucronate, attenuated at the base or petiolulate, green, glabrous or ± sericeous on the upper side, and sericeous on the underside. Inflorescences racemiform, terminal, with 1-15 pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 3 mm, sericeous. Calyx 5-7.5 mm, sericeous, split into 2 lips, usually subequal and similar in size to the tube, the upper lip bipartite into 2 triangular segments, and the lower lip tridentate almost up to halfway. Corolla 11-15 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with standard ovate, rounded or emarginate at the apex, glabrous, subequal or somewhat longer than the wings and keel, or the keel somewhat larger. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary very hairy and stigma oblique and introrse. Pod 20-45 × 4-5 mm, linear-oblong, strongly compressed and subtorulose, densely hairy-silvery, with 5-12 seeds. Seeds 2-3 mm, ovoid, compressed, smooth, brown, with no aril.
Flowering:
March to May.
Fruiting:
May to July.
Habitat:
Forests and thickets, especially in areas of Quercus suber forests, near the sea (it becomes more rare inland), in subhumid to humid bioclimate, on thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Sardinia, and in North Africa along littoral and sublittoral hills in the NE half of Algeria and northern Tunisia (where it reaches towards the E up to Cap Bon).
Conservation status:
Species with a small distribution area but in principle it is not considered threatened. In the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species G. ferox is listed as Least Concern (LC) at global level (Groom, 2012).