Common broom
Cytisus scoparius
Family · Fabaceae · Poisonous
Read this before the sheet
This plant, or one that resembles it, is dangerous. Identifying is not authorising: no app has the authority to tell you that you may eat or touch a plant.
The broom that paints whole northern and central slopes yellow in May, with green five-ridged stems that stay green all winter. The pods crack in the sun and shoot the seeds out.
Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground · Oak woods
Also known asScotch broom, besom broom
How to tell it
Green, straight, flexible stems with five sharp ridges felt under the finger, and no thorns at all. Leaves of three small leaflets, shed early. Bright yellow flowers two centimetres, solitary or in pairs at the axils. Black pods hairy on the margins when dry, cracking in the heat.
What it is confused with
Spanish broom
Spartium junceum
Run a finger along the stem: common broom has five ridges and is stiff, Spanish broom's stem is round, smooth and hollow like a rush. And Spanish broom's flowers are far larger and scented. Both are toxic.
Open sheet →What it is for
It gave brooms to half the country, and the scientific name comes from that. It is not eaten or infused: it contains sparteine, an alkaloid that alters heart rhythm and in high dose paralyses. It was used in medicine as an antiarrhythmic, on prescription, and is exactly the kind of plant not to improvise with.