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Genista tricuspidata Desf.

G. caballeroi Pau, G. tricuspidata subsp. caballeroi (Pau) Maire

Spa.: Aulaga, aliaga, genista.   Fre.: Genêt tricuspide.   Ara.: Guendul, chebrak.

Shrub or subshrub up to 1(2) m in height, very spiny, hermaphrodite, highly branched or even intricate, with erect stems, only slightly foliose. Stems and old branches with greyish-brown bark, fissured longitudinally, turning glabrous. Young branchlets green, longitudinally striated-ribbed, with 9-10 inverted V-shaped ribs, sericeous at first and turning glabrescent, ending in a spine. Spines simple or trifurcated —rarely pinnate—, green, 1-4.5 cm. Alternate leaves, unifoliolate, without stipules, subsessile, with leaflets 4-10 × 1-2 mm, oblong-lanceolate or spatulate, petiolulate, attenuated at the base, usually obtuse, green, glabrescent on the upper side and sericeous on the underside, with 2 spinulose phyllodes at the base. Inflorescences racemiform, terminal, lax, pauciflorous, with the axis ending in a spine and sometimes extended beyond the cluster of flowers, with pedicellate flowers, with pedicel up to 2.5 mm, sericeous. Calyx 3-6 mm, ± sericeous, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip bipartite into 2 triangular-lanceolate segments, and the lower lip tridentate, with lanceolate teeth. Corolla 6.5-13.5 mm, papilionoid, yellow, caducous, with standard ovate, truncate or emarginate at the apex, somewhat hairy at the apex and on the nerves, shorter than the wings and the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary sericeous, and stigma oblique and introrse. Legume 3-9 × 2-5 mm, ovoid, somewhat falcate, brown or blackish, sparsely sericeous with 1 seed. Seeds from 2-2.7 mm, ovoid or subglobose, smooth, brownish or black, without an aril.