Hesperolaburnum platycarpum (Maire) Maire
Laburnum platycarpum Maire
Tam.: Inif
Shrub up to 2(2.5) m in height, unarmed, broom-like, hermaphrodite, deciduous, highly branched from the base, with very erect stem and branches. Stems and older branches with greyish-brown bark, slightly fissured longitudinally. Young branchlets greenish, glabrous. Leaves alternate, trifoliolate, without stipules, subsessile, with leaflets 8-20 × 2-6 mm, petiolulate —petiolule c. 2 mm—, oblong-obovate, obtuse, apiculate, attenuated at the base, entire, glabrous, matt green to greenish-ashen on both sides. Inflorescences racemose, terminal, with 5-25 pedicelate flowers, with pedicel 3-5(8) mm, glabrous, with 2 bracteoles. Calyx 7-8 mm, herbaceous at first, turning papery, campanulate, bilabiate, greenish-yellow, with bidentate upper lip and tridentate lower lip, with smaller teeth, caducous before anthesis by a circumscissile break towards its base. Corolla c. 15 mm, butterfly-shaped, papilionoid, glabrous, yellow, with an ovate obtuse standard, and wings and standard slightly longer than the keel. Androecium monadelphous, with 10 stamens. Ovary glabrous. Pod 4-6 × 0.6-1.5(2) cm, linear-oblong, highly compressed, acuminate, attenuated at the base, brown when mature, glabrous, dehiscing late, with 1-6 seeds very prominent externally. Seeds 4-5mm, suborbicular, compressed, smooth, black.
Flowering:
January to April.
Fruiting:
April to July.
Habitat:
Somewhat cleared argan forests, in plains and low mountains, in different soils. In semiarid to dry bioclimate, on inframediterranean floors.
Distribution:
A Moroccan endemic species with a distribution area extending along the Suss Valley, western High Atlas (southern sector) and western Anti-Atlas (central and northern sectors).
Conservation status:
A species with a restricted distribution but relatively common, not considered threatened. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. In the Livre Rouge de la flore vasculaire du Maroc (Fennane, 2021) it has been considered as Near Threatened (NT).