Retama broom
Retama sphaerocarpa
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
The shrub of bare green rods that casts thin shade on the inland plains. It has almost no leaves: the stem does the photosynthesis, a solution for living where it rains little.
Montado · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Scrubland
Also known assphere-fruited broom
How to tell it
Green, smooth, thin rods hanging like a curtain. Tiny deciduous leaves, almost never present. Small yellow flowers and round pea-sized pods with a single seed.
What it is confused with
Broom
Cytisus striatus
The pod decides: retama's is round like a ball with one seed; broom's is flat, long and hairy, with several seeds.
What it is for
Shade and shelter for livestock and young plants in the montado, and brooms in the past. It contains alkaloids and is not a plant to eat, even though livestock browse it without trouble.
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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