Broom is a large, deciduous shrub, similar in appearance to gorse, but without the spines. This member of the pea family is common on heaths, in open woodlands and along hedgerows, and can also be found at the coast. Its bright yellow flowers appear in spring, from April to June, and smell of vanilla.

Brooms can be deciduous or evergreen and typically feature compound leaves with three leaflets. The yellow, purple, or white flowers are solitary or in small clusters. The fruit is a flat pod; the fruits of some species burst to scatter the seeds when ripe.

Broom or Cytisus is a deciduous plant that develops whippy stems. The flowers grow in thickly clustered bunches with yellow colored flowers that are fragrant and called “pea flowers”.

The scent is reminiscent of pineapple, and the plant can be grown to entwine with objects to make a focal point in your garden. Genisteae is a tribe of trees, shrubs and herbaceous plants in the subfamily Faboideae of the legume family Fabaceae.

It includes a number of well-known plants including broom, lupine (lupin), gorse and laburnum. The tribe’s greatest diversity is in the Mediterranean, and most genera are native to Europe, Africa, the Canary Islands, India and southwest Asia.

However, the largest genus, Lupinus, is most diverse in North and South America. Anarthrophytum and Sellocharis are also South American and Argyrolobium ranges into India.

We’ll be sharing more about this flower in future.