Genista numidica Spach
Spa.: Escobón. Fre.: Genêt. Ara.: Tectac.
Shrub up to 2.5 m in height, broom-like, unarmed, hermaphrodite, highly branched from the base, with erect stems and branches hardly foliose —promptly deciduous—. Stems and old branches with brown bark, fissured, turning glabrous. Young branchlets longitudinally striated, with numerous T-shaped ribs, silvery-sericeous along the valleys. Leaves alternate, lower leaves trifoliolate and upper leaves unifoliolate, with rudimentary stipules —stipular organ with 3 ribs—, with leaflets 5-13 mm, linear to linear-lanceolate or spatulate, attenuated at the base, ± obtuse, green, glabrous or sericeous on the upper side and sericeous on the underside. Inflorescences racemiform, terminal, dense, on stems of the previous year, with 5-30 pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 2 mm, sericeous-villous. Calyx 3-5 mm, densely sericeous-villous, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip subequal or shorter than the tube, bipartite in 2 ovate-acuminate segments, and the lower lip tridentate, larger than the upper lip. Corolla 8-9 mm, papilionoid, yellow, marcescent, with standard ovate, rounded or emarginate at the apex, densely sericeous on the dorsal side, subequal in size to the wings, and keel clearly longer. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary ± villous, and capitate stigma, introrse. Pod 5.5-6 × 3-4 mm, ovoid-acuminate, compressed, brown or blackish, glabrescent to villous, with 1-2 seeds. Seeds c. 2.5 mm, ovoid, compressed, smooth, brown, without an aril.
Flowering:
May to June.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Clearings in forests and thickets, in semiarid environment.
Distribution:
A rare Algerian endemic, from the Tellian Atlas.
Observations:
There are 4 subspecies, with partially allopatric Distribution. The type subspecies (subsp. numidica) grows in central and eastern Kabylia; G. numidica subsp. ischnoclada (Pomel) Batt. (G. ischnoclada Pomel) is known from Aïn Tédelès —near Oran—; G. numidica subsp. sarotes (Pomel) Batt. (G. sarotes Pomel) grows in Zaccar —S of Algiers—, and G. numidica subsp. filiramea (Pomel) Batt. (G. filiramea Pomel) is distributed throughout the Djurdjura Massif —western Kabylia—. It is possible that they all represent a single taxon.
Conservation status:
A species with a small distribution area and, although initially it is not considered threatened as species, its genetic diversity needs further study since most populations are small and isolated. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.