Scientific name: Retama sphaerocarpa (L.) Boiss.

Family: Fabaceae

Common name: Retama Broom

We look at this large shrub, up to 3 m high, very typical of our mountains, rustic and resistant, whose area of distribution is the Iberian Peninsula and northwest Africa.

This is a very branched plant, with flexible light gray branches. The leaves are linear, very small and fall off soon, so in many cases they are not present and the stem is the one that performs photosynthesis. The small flowers measure about 8 mm and are arranged in dense pendulous clusters; they are of a beautiful yellow color, with the corolla papilionaceous, that is, butterfly-shaped. The fruit is an almost round ovoid legume. We can see its flowering from April to early June, this can always vary a little depending on the weather.

Retama comes from an Arabic word, which was given to this type of plant. The name of the species derives from Greek, and means spherical fruit. The broom has properties that have been used in traditional medicine for acute conditions of the respiratory system, it is also diuretic, but can sometimes be toxic. It is useful for restoring degraded land. In La Concepción there are several specimens in areas with Mediterranean vegetation, such as around the old threshing floor, the rockery of Mediterranean climates and the forest route.