White osyris
Osyris alba
Family · Santalaceae · Harmless
The shrub with green rods and narrow leaves that looks like a broom and is not: it is a sandalwood relative and lives partly off its neighbours' roots, with nothing visible from outside.
Scrubland · Oak woods · Montado · Walls and rocks
Also known aspoet's cassia
How to tell it
Green, straight, angular rods with small, narrow, leathery, alternate, well-spaced leaves. Tiny yellow-green flowers. Glossy red berries the size of a pea in late summer.
What it is confused with
Broom
Cytisus striatus
Both have green rods. Broom is a legume, with a yellow pea flower and a pod; osyris has insignificant green flowers and bears red berries, which no broom does.
What it is for
No relevant use
The interest is ecological: it is a root hemiparasite, which means it photosynthesises normally but steals water and minerals from whatever is nearby. The berries feed birds.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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