Scientific name: Ulex gallii Planch.
Common name: Western Gorse
Description
Habit: A densely spiny, shrub, to 1.5 m high.
Stems: Erect, spreading, bushy; stems deep green and sparsely covered with black hairs.
Leaves and spines: Alternate, pinnate, with 3 leaflets on young plants; deep green and sparsely covered with black hairs; leaves reduced to scales or weak spines on mature plants, spines very strong, 11-30 mm long and grooved.
Flowers: Golden yellow, zygomorphic, 12-14 mm across, 1-few in irregular racemes, intermixed with spines; calyx 10-16 mm, split into 2 lips, upper lip shortly 2-toothed, hairs lying flat, with a 1 mm bracteole on each side between the calyx-lips; petals 5; forming 2 free wings, 2 are fused to form lower keel and 1 conceals the stamens and carpel; petals partly united with each other and the stamens; stamens 10 all fused to form a tube; carpel 1, style 1.
Fruits: A legume pod, 2-6-seeded, more than half enclosed within calyx.
Habitat: Heathy ground.Distribution: Locally abundant in Galway, not recorded elsewhere.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No