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Cytisus villosus Pourr.

Genista triflora Rouy, C. triflorus var. bidentatus Chab., C. triflorus L’Hér.

Eng.: Hairy broom.   Spa.: Escoba, escobón.   Fre.: Cytise à trois fleurs.   Ara.: Gikio, buharis, qitis, dhibene.   Tam.: Tilluzit, hugli, tilqi, hilgui, tulgit, timechrirate, mersir’id.

Shrub or subshrub up to 2.5(3) m in height, unarmed, hermaphrodite, highly branched, with upright stems, not sharp, and leaves almost persistent. Stem and old branches with bark longitudinally fissured, brownish or greyish-brown, glabrous. Young branchlets ridged longitudinally, with 5 semicylindrical and distant ribs, with double indumentum, with hairs 0.5-1.5 mm, straight and patent, and smaller crisped or uncinate hairs along the valleys. Leaves all trifoliolate —upper leaves are rarely bifoliolate—, without stipules, with petiole 6-17 mm, and unequal leaflets, the central leaflet larger (10-47 × 5-20 mm), obovate or oblong-obovate, obtuse —sometimes mucronate—, attenuated at base, subsessile, sericeous on both sides, green. Flowers solitary or in groups of (2)3(4) on young branches, with pedicel 6-18 mm, with double indumentum, sometimes with 1-3 bracteoles halfway along the pedicel. Calyx 5-6.5 mm, campanulate, villous, green at first and then brownish-black, bilabiate, with shortly dentate lips, the upper lip with 2 teeth and the lower lip with 3 and slightly larger. Corolla 17-22 mm, papilionoid, yellow, with an ovate-rhomboid standard, glabrous, longer than the wings and the keel, keel falcate. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary hairy, and stigma elongated. Pod 35-50 × 5-6 mm, linear-oblong, highly compressed, green at first and then black, sparsely villous but turning glabrescent, with 4-11 seeds. Seeds 2.2-3 mm, ovoid or ellipsoid, compressed, smooth, brown.