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Calobota saharae (Coss. & Durieu) Boatwr. & B.-E. van Wyk

Genista saharae Coss. & Durieu, Spartidium saharae (Coss. & Durieu) Pomel

Fre.: Genêt du Sahara.   Ara.: Murkh, merkh, lilga.   Tam.: Tilzgit, tellegit.

Shrub up to 1.5(2) m in height, unarmed, broom-like, hermaphrodite, deciduous, branched from the base, with stems slender and erect. Stems and old branches with reddish-brown bark, slightly fissured longitudinally. Young branchlets erect or erect-patent, somewhat angular and often leafless, green, sericeous at first and then glabrous. Leaves alternate, unifoliolate, sessile, without stipules, promptly deciduous, with linear-oblong leaflet, subacute, attenuated at the base, entire, glabrous on the upper side and sericeous on the underside. Inflorescences racemose, terminal, lax, longly pedunculate, with 3-9 pedicellate flowers, with pedicel 3-4 mm, somewhat hairy, with 2 bracteoles. Calyx c. 5 mm, only just bilabiate, cupuliform-campanulate, with 5 triangular subequal teeth, green, loosely hairy. Corolla c. 10 mm, papilionoid, predominantly yellow, with a triangular-ovate standard, ± purple and hairy on the dorsal side, wings a little shorter than the banner, glabrous, and keel also glabrous, roughly the same length as the standard. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary glabrous, and capitate stigma. Pod 25-50 × 5-10 mm, stipitate, oblong, compressed, apiculate —with a persistent style—, attenuated at the base, papery, glabrous, green at first and then brown-blackish, with persistent calyx at the base, and 2-7 seeds very pronounced externally. Seeds 2-3 mm, reniform, compressed, smooth, brown.