Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Fabales > Fabaceae > Cytisus > Cytisus scoparius

Cytisus scoparius (Broomtops; Common broom; European broom; Irish broom; Scotch broom; scotchbroom; English broom; Broom; Scots Broom; Yellow Broom)

Synonyms:
Language: French; German; Portuguese; Russian

Wikipedia Abstract

Cytisus scoparius, the common broom or Scotch broom, syn. Sarothamnus scoparius, is a perennial leguminous shrub native to western and central Europe. In Britain and Ireland, the standard name is broom, but this name is also used for other members of the Genisteae tribe, such as French broom or Spanish broom, and the term common broom is sometimes used for clarification. In other English-speaking countries, the most prevalent common name is Scotch broom (or Scot's broom); English broom is also occasionally used.
View Wikipedia Record: Cytisus scoparius

Infraspecies

Cytisus scoparius f. horizontalis
Cytisus scoparius f. verticalis
Cytisus scoparius insularis
Cytisus scoparius maritimus
Cytisus scoparius reverchonii
Cytisus scoparius scoparius (Vulnerable) (Attributes)

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Cytisus scoparius

Attributes

Bloom Period [1]  Spring
Dispersal Mode [5]  Autochory
Drought Tolerance [1]  High
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Fire Tolerance [1]  High
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Frost Free Days [1]  5 months
Fruit/Seed Abundance [1]  High
Fruit/Seed Begin [1]  Spring
Fruit/Seed End [1]  Summer
Growth Form [1]  Multiple Stem
Growth Period [1]  Spring, Summer
Growth Rate [1]  Rapid
Hazards [2]  Poisonous; The plant is of extremely low or zero toxicity;
Leaf Type [2]  Deciduous
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Bees
Propagation [1]  Bare Root, Container, Seed
Root Depth [1]  16 inches (41 cm)
Seed Spread Rate [1]  Rapid
Seed Vigor [1]  High
Seeds Per [1]  57000 / lb (125663 / kg)
Shape/Orientation [1]  Erect
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [2]  An excellent fibre is obtained from the bark, it is used in the manufacture of paper, cloth and nets; It is not as strong as the fibre from the Spanish broom (Spartium junceum); The fibre is obtained from the root according to other reports; The bark fibre is used to make paper, it is 2 - 9mm long; The branches are harvested in late summer or autumn, the leaves removed and the stems steamed until the fibres can be stripped. The fibres are cooked for 3 hours in lye then put in a ball mill for 3 hours. The paper is pale tan in colour; The bark is a good source of tannin; A yellow and a brown dye are obtained from the bark; A yellow dye is obtained from the flowering stem; A green dye is obtained from the leaves and young tops; The branches are used to make baskets, brushes, brooms and besoms; They are also sometimes used for thatching roofs and as substitutes for reeds in making fences or screens; An essential oil from the flowers is used in perfumery; Growing well on dry banks and on steep slopes, it is an effective sand binder and soil stabiliser; Broom is one of the first plant to colonize sand dunes by the coast; The plant attracts insects away from nearby plants; The var. prostratus (= C. scoparius maritimus?; The cultivar 'Andreanus Prostratus' can also be used; Wood - very hard, beautifully veined; The plant seldom reaches sufficient size for its wood to be of much value, but larger specimens are valued by cabinet makers and for veneer;
Vegetative Spread Rate [1]  None
Flower Color [1]  Yellow
Foliage Color [1]  Green
Fruit Color [1]  Black
Flower Conspicuous [1]  Yes
Height [2]  7.872 feet (2.4 m)
Width [2]  39 inches (1 m)
Hardiness Zone Minimum [1]  USDA Zone: 5 Low Temperature: -20 F° (-28.9 C°) → -10 F° (-23.3 C°)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [4]  Mostly Acid
Soil Fertility [4]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [4]  Moist
Water Use [1]  Low
Screening - Summer [1]  Dense
Screening - Winter [1]  Moderate
View Plants For A Future Record : Cytisus scoparius

Protected Areas

Ecosystems

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Arnaudiella genistae[6]
Erysiphe trifolii[6]
Flammulina velutipes[6]
Shelter for 
Saxicola rubicola (European Stonechat)[11]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 6Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 7New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 8Predators, parasitoids and pathogens: species richness, trophic generality and body sizes in a natural food web J. Memmott N.D. Martinez J.E. Cohen Journal of Animal Ecology Volume 69, Issue 1 January 2000 Pages 1-15
♦ 9Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 10Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 11Ecology of Commanster
♦ 12Dama dama, George A. Feldhamer, Kelly C. Farris-Renner, and Celeste M. Barker, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 317, pp. 1-8 (1988)
♦ 13Tamias ochrogenys, William L. Gannon, Richard B. Forbes, and Douglas E. Kain, MAMMALIAN SPECIES No. 445, pp. 1-4 (1993)
♦ 14Juškaitis R. 2008. The Common Dormouse Muscardinus avellanarius: Ecology, Population Structure and Dynamics. Institute of Ecology of Vilnius University Publishers, Vilnius.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0