Teline linifolia (L.) Webb & Berthel.
needle-leaved broom
Much-branched, evergreen shrub up to 2.5 m high; twigs sericeous, particularly when young, rounded and sharply ribbed. Lvs sparsely to moderately clothed in appressed hairs above, densely clothed in appressed hairs below, sessile, exstipulate, mostly 3-foliolate; leaflets shortly petiolulate, linear or narrowly elliptic, involute, acute, 10-30 × 1-5 mm; terminal leaflet > lateral leaflets. Infls terminal, shortly racemose, 6-16-flowered; pedicels 3-6 mm long. Calyx densely hairy, bilabiate; upper lip deeply 2-fid; lower lip distinctly 3-lobed. Corolla yellow, 12-15 mm long; standard ± uniformly sericeous. Pod densely villous, oblong, 2-6-seeded, c. 10-25 mm long; seeds green to black, ellipsoid or orbicular, flattened, c. 2-2.5 mm diam.
N.: well-established on Bluff Hill, Napier; S.: Governors Bay (Banks Peninsula).
W. Mediterranean, Morocco 1981
Dry coastal cliffs, roadsides.
FL Jun-Dec.
T. linifolia is a variable sp. with several described subspp.; naturalised N.Z. plants belong to subsp. linifolia. Needle-leaved broom has probably established on Bluff Hill as an escape from cultivation and was first collected there in 1965.
