Cytisus scoparius Broom

A common shrubby legume found on usually well drained or sandy, acidic soils in heathland and woodland, along riversides, on roadside verges and coal tips. It bears a superficial resemblance to Gorse but the rigid, angular (usually five-angled) stems do not have spines. It priduces small oval leaves whuch are deciduous and masses of yellow, vanilla-scented pea-flowers (somestimes tinged or blothched with red) in early summer. A prostrate form (subspecies maritimus) grows on exposed, western sea cliffs. Broom is widespread and common in much of coastal and lowland West Glamorgan, but rather local in Gower and in the uplands. It has been used in coal spoil remediation plantings where its ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen it root nodules helps to fertilise the otherwise nutrient-poor soil. The foliage contains toxic alkaloids such as cytisine, sparteine, lupanine and scoparin. Cytisine is an interesting quinolizidine alkaloid and a nicotine analogue which has been employed in therapies to help people give up smoking and sparteine has been employed medically as a sodium channel blocker in the treatment of abnormal heart rhythms such as those associated with tachycardia.