Sierra Nevada broom
Genista versicolor
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
The high mountain broom of the Baetic ranges, forming low cushions above two thousand metres where nothing else is a shrub any more, flowering yellow in July.
Uplands · Scrubland
Also known ashigh mountain genista
How to tell it
A creeping shrub in a compact cushion, with stiff spine-tipped branches and very small silky three-part leaves. Yellow flowers in short clusters at the tips, changing shade as they dry, which gives the name. Range: mainly a Spanish plant, practically absent from Portugal.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None. It is the dominant vegetation of the oromediterranean belt of Sierra Nevada and neighbouring ranges, and the habitat of several species found nowhere else on earth. Off the trail, one of these cushions takes decades to recover.