White weeping broom
Retama monosperma
Family · Fabaceae · Poisonous
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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.
Emergency
The southern dune shrub that in late winter covers itself in fragrant white flowers, its branches falling like a cascade. Beautiful from afar, toxic up close: the seeds carry alkaloids that act on the heart.
Dunes and sand · Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asbridal veil broom
How to tell it
A tall shrub of thin, greyish, DROOPING branches, almost leafless, giving it the look of a cascade. Small, strongly scented white flowers in groups along the branch. A small rounded pod with just ONE seed, which is what the name says. Spanish broom has large yellow flowers and thick, green, upright branches.
What it is confused with
Spanish broom
Spartium junceum
Large YELLOW flowers, and bright green, thick, upright rush-like branches. Its seeds are toxic too, and it is not tasted either.
What it is for
None to encourage
The seed and flower carry quinolizidine alkaloids of the cytisine group, causing vomiting, dizziness, convulsions and heart rhythm disturbances. It was planted to stabilise dunes, which is why it turns up on sands where people walk barefoot and with children.
Where it occurs
Sources
Community
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