Genista monspessulana
Environmental Weed (2024)
Common names
Montpellier broom
Biostatus
Exotic
Category
Vascular
Structural class
Trees & Shrubs - Dicotyledons
Flower colours
Yellow
Detailed description
Much-branched, usually evergreen shrub up to 2.5m high; twigs villous, particularly when young, round and ribbed. Leaves usually sparsely to densely clothed in appressed hairs on both surfaces, sometimes subglabrous above, petiolate, 3-foliolate; leaflets shortly petiolulate, obovate, acute to obtuse and shortly mucronate, 7~20 x 4~10mm; terminal leaflet larger than lateral leaflets; stipules triangular to lanceolate, up to 2.5mm long. Infl. a cluster, with axis < 10mm long, of 4~7 flowers, terminating short lateral branches; pedicels approx. 3mm long. Calyx densely hairy, bilabiate; upper lip deeply bifid; lower lip shortly 3-lobed. Corolla yellow to golden yellow, 9~13mm long; standard glabrous. Pod densely villous, oblong, 3~6-seeded, around 18~20mm long; seeds green to black, ellipsoid or orbicular, flattened, approx. 2.5mm diam. (Webb et. al., 1988)
Similar taxa
Evergreen shrub with trifoliate leaves, with stipules and either petiolate or subsessile. Flowers in clusters of 4-7 usually, with an axis of about 1cm (can be up to 4cm in hybrids).
Habitat
Terrestrial.
Conservation status
Not applicable
Detailed taxonomy
Family
Synonyms
Teline monspessulana (L.) K.Koch
Ecology
Flowering
May, June, July, August, September, October, November
Year naturalised
1872
Origin
Mediterranean , Asia Minor, Azores
Reason for introduction
Ornamental.
Life cycle and dispersal
Perennial. Dispersed by wind, gravity, ripe seed pods are explosive on warm days.
Other information
Etymology
genista: From the ancient Latin name for this plant.
Environmental Weed (2024)
This plant is named in a list of 386 environmental weeds in New Zealand 2024 prepared by DOC. 759 candidate species were considered for inclusion on this new comprehensive list of environmental weeds in New Zealand. The species considered were drawn from published lists of weed species, lists of plants that must be reported or managed by law if observed, existing national and regional programmes and agreements for pest management, and species already managed by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Candidate species were then assessed to see if they were fully naturalised and whether they have more than minor impacts in natural ecosystems. Read the full report here.
NVS code
The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.
GENMNS