A semi-evergreen shrub said to grow to 3 ft or so high in the wild state. Leaves trifoliolate, grey-green, sessile and set very densely on the shoots, hairy; leaflets linear-oblong. Flowers orange-yellow, in dense terminal racemes; calyx glandular and downy, the median tooth of the lower lip longer than the laterals. Pods densely glandular.
Native of the Canary Islands, mainly on Teneriffe. A closely allied species is A. foliolosus (Ait.) DC. (Cytisus foliolosus Ait.), which is a native of the Grand Canary. It is a taller shrub, to about 10 ft high, distinguished botanically by having the calyx hairy but not glandular and the three teeth of its lower lip of equal length; the pods are only glandular when young.
A plant at Brodick in the Isle of Arran, labelled A. foliolosus, has not been examined in flower but appears to be A. viscosus. Planted in 1959, it has reached the remarkable stature of 14 ft high and 16 ft across (1966) and flowers and fruits well in most years.