A deciduous, bushy shrub 5 or 6 ft high, with ribbed, not downy branchlets. Leaves glabrous, trifoliolate, usually without stalks on the short flowering shoots, but with stalks up to 3⁄4 in. long on the stronger, non-flowering ones. Leaflets very variable in shape, often obovate, but also oval, roundish, or oblate, from 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. long, pointed. Flowers four to ten, in short racemes terminating short side twigs of the year, bright yellow, 1⁄2 in. long, expanding in June. Pod 11⁄4 in. long, 1⁄3 in. wide, glabrous. Bot. Mag., t. 255.
Native of S. Europe and N. Africa; introduced over three hundred years ago, and one of the most attractive of the later-flowering brooms. It is more appreciated on the continent than with us, and gives some of the brightest effects seen in German gardens in June.