Genista linifolia L. subsp. linifolia
Cytisus linifolius (L.) Lam., Spartium linifolium (L.) Desf., Teline linifolia (L.) Webb
Eng.: Needle-leaved broom, flax-leaf broom. Spa.: Escoba, escobón blanco, retama fina. Fre.: Genêt a feuilles de lin. Ara.: Hisbane, chahmet el atrus, mrah. Tam.: Irdjauan, hisbane, lezaiza.
Shrub up to 1.5(2) m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, not highly branched, with upright stems, foliose especially towards the ends. Stems and old branches with greyish-brown bark, fissured longitudinally, turning glabrous. Young branchlets ribbed longitudinally, with 8 T-shaped ribs, sericeous-silvery at first. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate, with stipules, subsessile —petiole less than 0.6 mm—, with leaflets 8-30 × 1-5 mm, more than 5 times longer than wide, linear or narrowly elliptical, with revolute margins, attenuate at the base into a short petiolule, acute or obtuse, greenish and glabrescent on the upper side, and sericeous-silvery on the underside. Inflorescence racemiform, terminal, with 5-18 pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 5 mm, sericeous. Calyx 7-11 mm, sericeous, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip bipartite into 2 lanceolate segments, and the lower lip trifid. Corolla 12-14 mm, papilionoid, yellow, marcescent, with an ovate standard, notched, sericeous on the dorsal side, subequal or somewhat longer than the wings and the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary sericeous and oblique stigma. Pod 15-21 × 5-6 mm, linear-oblong, compressed, at first green turning blackish, villous, with 1-5 seeds. Seeds 2.2-2.9 mm, ± ovoid or somewhat compressed, smooth, from greenish to brownish, with an aril.
Flowering:
February to May.
Fruiting:
May to July.
Habitat:
Forests and thickets on siliceous soils. In areas with dry to subhumid bioclimate, sometimes in drier areas that still retain considerable forest soil, on thermomediterranean and mesomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Western Mediterranean region. In North Africa it grows in northern Morocco (central and western Rif, peneplains of Gharb, and littoral and sublittoral Atlantic plains up to the region of Chaouia) and in NW Algeria (littoral and sublittoral mountains from the E of Algiers up to Morocco, Mountains of Tlemcen).
Conservation status:
Always a rare species, but not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.