Retama dasycarpa Coss.
Genista dasycarpa Ball, nom. nud.
Eng.: Atlas broom. Spa.: Retama del Atlas. Fre.: Retam de l’Atlas. Ara.: Rtem, uliga, besliga; the fruit: qerih. Tam.: Telet, telggit, tillugit, tilugguii, taleggut, tselgust aluggu, aluggu, algu.
Shrub up to 3 m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, with stems and branches highly branched from the base, erect, rigid, with few leaves. Stems and old branches with smooth or fissured bark, brown or brown-green. Young branchlets with inverted V-shaped ribs, sericeous-silvery at first and then sometimes hairy only along the grooves. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, sessile, very promptly deciduous, without stipules, with leaflet 6-7 mm, oblong-obovate, entire, obtuse or retuse, with slightly involute margins, laxly sericeous-silvery on both sides. Inflorescence racemose, lax, axillary, solitary or geminate, with 6-16 flowers, shortly pedicellate, each accompanied by 2 promptly caducous bracteoles. Calyx c. 3 mm, campanulate, only just bilabiate, with subequal lips and shorter than the tube, the upper lip bipartite and the lower lip shortly tridentate, greenish-yellow, densely hairy, circumcised after anthesis. Corolla 5-7 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with a suborbicular or broadly ovate standard, retuse at the apex, hairy on the dorsal side, and wings and keel the same size as the standard. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary villous along the ventral suture and the nerve, and capitate stigma. Pod 8-10 × 6.5-7 mm, ovoid-subglobose, slightly compressed, densely villous-lanate, apiculate, indehiscent, with 1(2) seeds. Seeds 6-7 mm, subglobose or ovoid, compressed, smooth, yellowish.
Flowering:
June to July.
Fruiting:
July to September.
Habitat:
Clearings in forests and thickets in montane areas (1,200-1,600 m), in semiarid to subhumid bioclimate.
Distribution:
Endemic to Morocco, where it is distributed across the western and central High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas (Ida ou Gnidif and Tifernin mountains).
Conservation status:
A common species but with a small distribution range, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.