Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
GENISTA
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
GENISTA, in botany, a genus of about eighty species of shrubs belonging to the natural order Leguminosae, and natives of Europe, western Asia and North Africa. Three are native in Britain. G. anglica is the needle-furze or petty whin; found on heaths and moist moors, a spinous plant with. slender spreading branches to 2 ft. long, very small leaves and short racemes of small yellow papilionaceous flowers. The pollen is emitted in a shower when an insect alights on it. G. tinctoria, dyer's green-weed, the flowers of which yield a yellow dye, has no spines. Other species are grown on rock-work or as green-house plants.