Genista triacanthos Brot.
Spa.: Aliaga morisca. Fre.: Genêt. Ara.: Guendul, chebrak.
Shrub or subshrub up to 1(1.5) m in height, spiny, hermaphrodite, highly branched, with erect or decumbent stems, only slightly foliose. Stems and old branches with brown bark, fissured longitudinally, turning glabrous. Young branchlets green, longitudinally striated-ribbed, with 4-5 inverted V-shaped ribs, somewhat hairy at first, ending in a spine. Spines simple, bifurcated, trifurcated or pinnate. Leaves alternate, with 3(5) leaflets —on the fertile branchlets sometimes unifoliolate or bifoliolate due to atrophy—, without stipules, subsessile, with leaflets 3.5-10 × 1-2 mm, linear-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, briefly petiolulate, attenuated at the base, acute, green, puberulent or glabrescent on both sides, with spinescent phyllodes at the base. Inflorescences racemiform, terminal, ± dense, with 5-25 pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 2.5 mm, glabrous. Calyx 3-5 mm, glabrescent, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip bipartite into 2 triangular segments, and the lower lip trifid. Corolla 5-9.5 mm, papilionoid, yellow, caducous, with standard ovate, acute at the apex, glabrous, subequal to the wings and subequal or smaller than the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary sericeous or tomentose, and stigma oblique and introrse. Pod 5.5-7.5 × 2.7-3.5 mm, ovoid-rhomboid, compressed, brown-reddish or blackish, sparsely sericeous, with 1(2) seeds. Seeds 1.4-1.8 mm, ovoid or somewhat compressed, smooth, brownish, without an aril.
Flowering:
March to May.
Fruiting:
May to July.
Habitat:
Forests and thickets on siliceous or somewhat decalcified terrains, in subhumid and humid bioclimatic zones, on thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Western area of the Iberian Peninsula and NW Morocco.
Observations:
There are 2 recognised subspecies in the territory. G. triacanthos Brot. subsp. triacanthos (G. winkleri Lange) with bifid or trifid spines (among other characters), distributed in the Iberian Peninsula and NW Morocco (Tingitana Peninsula). G. triacanthos subsp. vepres (Pomel) P.E.Gibbs (G. vepres Pomel, G. kabylica Coss.) with simple spines, much more localised, endemic to the humid mountains of Kabylia (NE Tellian Atlas) in Algeria.
Conservation status:
The species is not considered threatened, however its population cover a relatively small area. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In Algeria subsp. vepres is included in the List of protected non cultivated flora (Executive Decree 12-03 on 4-Jan-2012).