Cytisus Desf.
Shrubs or small trees, not armed. Lvs 1- or 3-foliolate, petiolate or apetiolate; stipules small or 0. Fls yellow, white, reddish or tinged mauve, axillary or forming leafy, terminal racemes; bracts and bracteoles small, caducous. Calyx campanulate, bilabiate, usually < 5 mm long; upper lip shortly 2-fid or toothed; lower lip with 3, usually minute or indistinct teeth. Stamens connate into a closed tube; alternate anthers long and basifixed or short and versatile. Style glabrous; stigma terminal. Pod 2-valved, ± straight, explosively dehiscent, few- to many-seeded; seeds strophiolate, smooth.
Key
Twigs ± 5-angled; corolla usually yellow, rarely partly red or tinged mauve, 16-25 mm long
c. 25 spp., Europe, Mediterranean. Naturalised spp. 2.
