Genista cephalantha Spach
Spa.: Genista. Fre.: Genêt. Ara.: Guendul.
Shrub or subshrub usually up to 0.8(1) m in height, cushion-shaped, unarmed, hermaphrodite, with highly branched stems, alternate or opposite branches, and leaves promptly deciduous, giving an ephedroid aspect. Stems and old branches with yellowish-brown, fissured bark, glabrous, which peels off at the end. Young branchlets striated-ribbed longitudinally, green, sericeous. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, with spinescent stipules, sessile, with leaflets (6)10-20 × 2-4 mm, oblanceolate, attenuate at the base, acute, green, ± sericeous on both sides. Inflorescence capituliform, terminal, with 5-20 flowers briefly pedicellate, with pedicel up to 1.3 mm, hairy. Calyx 6-10 mm, villous, especially on the teeth, deeply split into 2 lips, the upper lip bipartite into 2 ovate-lanceolate segments, and the lower lip divided almost to the base into 3 lanceolate teeth, subequal the upper lip. Corolla 10-14 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with an ovate standard, with an acute apex, subglabrous, subequal in size to the wings and the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary villous, and oblique stigma. Pod 8-9 × c. 4 mm, ovoid-acuminate, compressed, brown, sericeous, with 1-2 seeds. Seeds 2.5-3 mm, ovoid or somewhat compressed, smooth, from dark green to dark brown, without an aril.
Flowering:
February to May.
Fruiting:
May to July.
Habitat:
Forests and thickets on a wide range soils, basic or acidic, from sea level to mid-mountain. In areas with semiarid to humid bioclimates, on thermomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Endemic to Morocco and Algeria. Distributed across the Rif, the High Atlas and the western Tellian Atlas.
Observations:
There are 2 recognised subspecies, both highly polymorphic. G. cephalantha Spach subsp. cephalantha, with flowers with a standard with an acute or subobtuse apex not emarginate, that grows in NE Morocco and NW Algeria, and G. cephalantha subsp. demnatensis (Murb.) Raynaud (G. demnatensis Murb.), with flowers with an emarginate standard; endemic to Morocco, on the mountainous region of Demnat and surroundings, reaching towards the S up to the central High Atlas.The following species are very similar to the above, in their flowers, arranged in capituliform inflorescences —though in fewer numbers in the inflorescence (3-8)— and also in their ovoid-acuminate pods. Both species without spinescent stipules and widely divided in North Africa. G. microcephala Coss. & Durieu (G. tripolitana Bornm.) a subshrub also cushion-shaped and ephedroid, up to 0.5 m in height, with unifoliolate leaves, smaller (c. 10 mm), and inflorescence with 4-10 flowers; endemic to the driest, sometimes steppic areas of NE Algeria, central and northern Saharan Tunisia and NW Libya. G. capitellata Coss. (G. microcephala var. capitellata (Coss.) Maire, G. microcephala var. tunetana Coss.) only differs from the previous species by its narrow, linear or linear-triangular bracts, and by the calix with few short and applied hairs; endemic to North African forests, thickets and steppes of dry and semiarid areas from Morocco (eastern High Atlas and Saharan Atlas), and Algeria (dry Mediterranean areas, steppic plains and Saharan Atlas), to Tunisia (mountains of the Tunisian Dorsal and some southern pseudo-steppic mountains up to the Sahara).
Conservation status:
The 3 species are relatively common but with a small distribution range. In principle they are not considered threatened. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021), G. cephalantha has been considered as Near Threatened (NT) and G. capitellata as Endangered (EN).
