Genista spartioides Spach
Spa.: Bolina. Fre.: Genêt. Ara.: Haït el atrus, chedida.
Suffrutex or shrub up to 1.5(4) m in height, broom-like, unarmed, hermaphrodite, highly branched from the base, with erect stems —sometimes with one or several thick trunks, which branch towards the end— and divaricate branches, broom-like, hardly foliose —promptly deciduous—. Stems and old branches with fissured brown bark, turning glabrous. Young branchlets striated longitudinally, with (8)11-12(13) T-shaped ribs, with sericeous hairs along the ribs and short uncinate hairs along the valleys. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, with stipules —stipular organ with 3 ribs—, with leaflets 3-10 × 0.8-2 mm, linear-lanceolate, attenuated at the base, petiolulate, sharp, green, sericeous on both sides, more sericeous on the underside. Inflorescences racemiform, axillary, on the stems of the previous year, with 3-30 pedicellate flowers —sometimes reduced to 1-2 flowers—, with pedicel up to 2 mm, sericeous. Calyx 2.5-5.5 mm, densely sericeous, deeply split into 2 lips usually smaller than the tube, the upper lip bipartite into 2 ovate segments, and the lower lip trifid or tridentate, subequal or somewhat larger than the upper lip. Corolla 7-13 mm, papilionoid, yellow, marcescent, with standard ovate or triangular-lanceolate, apiculate at apex, sericeous along the midrib subequal to the wings in size, and keel clearly longer. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy at least at the margin, and stigma elliptical, introrse. Pod 7-9 × 3-4 mm, ovoid-acuminate, biconvex, sericeous or sometimes hairy only along the suture, 1(2) seeds. Seeds 2.3-3.5 mm, ovoid or subglobose, smooth, brown, without an aril.
Flowering:
February to June.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Clearings of forests and thickets on plains and low mountains, in semiarid to subhumid bioclimatic zones, on mainly thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Some authors recognise 2 subspecies. G. spartioides subsp. spartioides (G. retamoides Coss.), plants with glabrous or glabrescent ovaries and pods, that grow in the coastal mountains of southern Spain, the NE areas of Morocco, and the NW of Algeria (between Ras Kebdana and Dahra). G. spartioides subsp. pseudoretamoides Maire (G. retamoides var. palmiformis Maire) is an Algerian-Moroccan endemic taxon that is much more widespread over the territory (in the eastern Middle Atlas, eastern Rif and Muluya steppes and the western Tellian Atlas) and includes the plants that have very hairy ovaries and pods.
Observations:
G. spartioides subsp. pseudoretamoides can have an extraordinary large size, in some cases up to 4 m in height; these plants are often felled for firewood or charcoal. Therefore, although they were once abundant, they are now very difficult to find. These large specimens were called Genista palmiformis (Sennen & Mauricio ex Maire) Maire & Sennen and some were still present in the eastern Rif and the Moroccan Tellian Atlas (Debdou) in the late XX Century.
Conservation status:
A relatively common species and widely distributed, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.