Genista umbellata (L'Hér.) Dum. subsp. umbellata
Spartium umbellatum L’Hér.
Spa.: Bolina. Fre.: Genêt.
Shrub or subshrub usually up to 0.7(1) m in height, cushion-shaped, unarmed, hermaphrodite, with highly branched stems, with alternate, opposite or whorled branches, and promptly deciduous leaves, giving an ephedroid aspect. Stems and old branches with red-brown bark, with 11-12 T-shaped ribs arranged close together, glabrescent. Young branchlets striated-ribbed longitudinally, green, sericeous. Leaves alternate or opposite, unifoliolate —trifoliolate only at the base of young plants—, with stipules, the stipular organ with 3 ribs confluent at the apex, leaflets 3-16 × 1.2-3 mm, usually lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, petiolulate, acute, green, ± sericeous on both sides. Inflorescence capituliform, terminal, with 5-13(20) flowers, subsessile or briefly pedicellate, with pedicel up to 2.5 mm, sericeous. Calyx 4.5-8 mm, sericeous, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip bipartite into 2 ovate lobes, and the lower lip longer, with 3 triangular-lanceolate teeth, the central tooth straight and the lateral teeth divergent. Corolla 9-14 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with an ovate standard, with rounded or truncate apex, entire or emarginate, recurved, almost entirely sericeous on the dorsal side, larger than the wings and the wings smaller than the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary sericeous and stigma capitate. Pod 15-24 × 4-6 mm, linear-oblong, somewhat compressed and torulose, brown, sericeous, with 2-5 seeds. Seeds 2-3 mm, ovoid-polygonal, somewhat compressed, smooth, brown-blackish, bright, without an aril.
Flowering:
April to June.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Clearings in forests and thickets, in littoral and sublittoral mountains, and fixed dunes, becoming rarer inland. In areas with semiarid and subhumid bioclimate, on thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
SE Spain, NE Morocco and NW Algeria. In some places, as in the NW slope of the Cape Three Forks, it is the dominant species among the degrading thickets of the primitive forests of junipers (Juniperus oxycedrus), kermes oaks (Quercus coccifera), mastic trees (Pistacia lenticus) and wild olive trees (Olea europaea).
Observations:
The subsp. equisetiformis (Spach) Rivas Goday & Rivas Mart. (G. equisetiformis Spach) is endemic to the southern region of the Iberian Peninsula.
Conservation status:
A relatively common and widespread species, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.