Gorse (Genista) – a plant with yellow flowers

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Gorse (Genista) is a genus of shrubs and shrubs belonging to the legume family (Fabaceae), growing in the warm regions of Europe, the Middle East, and North America. Some species are used for decorative and medicinal purposes.

  • Family: legumes.
  • Origin: Europe, Western Asia, North America.
  • Rhizome: branched, woody.
  • Stem: straight or creeping.
  • Leaves: simple or trifoliate.
  • Fruit: bean.
  • Reproductive capacity: propagated by seeds and cuttings.
  • Illumination: photophilous.
  • Watering: drought tolerant.
  • Content temperature: requires shelter for the winter.
  • Flowering time: May-August depending on the species

Gorse: description and use in traditional medicine

Low-growing flowering shrubs and shrubs from 20 to 150 cm high, semi-evergreen or deciduous, with erect or creeping branches, covered with thorns in many species. Gorse leaves are sessile, small, simple or trifoliate, glabrous or strongly pubescent. Gorse flowers are bright golden, rarely whitish in color, similar in appearance to pea flowers, formed in the axils of the leaves in the upper part of the stems or on their tops, collected in brushes or heads. Bloom profusely in spring or summer. The fruits are small flat multi-seeded, sometimes one- or two-seeded beans.

In nature, they grow on dry soils, sandy, stony, calcareous. Abundant long flowering, drought resistance, small size and unpretentiousness to soils have led to the growing popularity of culture in decorative garden floriculture. A compact root system allows you to grow it as an indoor flower. Often used as soil-fixing plants on dry southern slopes, undersized species are planted in borders, rock gardens and on rocky hills as a potted plant, gorse is grown for 3-4 years, after which it is transferred to the ground.

Wild gorse in the photo

Bushes are propagated by seeds or cuttings, transplanted only at a young age, adult specimens do not tolerate transplantation well.

The ground part of the plants is slightly toxic, since it contains a number of alkaloids (cytisine, anagirin). Some species have medicinal properties. So, in folk medicine, the use of gorse as a tonic, blood-purifying, diuretic is widely known, and according to recent clinical trials, infusions of its ground part can be used in the treatment of thyroid pathologies.

Separate types and varieties of gorse used in floriculture

The genus includes about 100 species, some of which are often grown in gardens. Below are descriptions and photos of gorse of some decorative species.

Gorse dye (G. tincioria L.) , low, up to 1 m, fast-growing subshrub with an upright stem and thin branched lateral shoots. It blooms, depending on the habitat, 1.5 – 2 months from May to July. It is unpretentious, drought-resistant, in the conditions of the middle lane it requires little shelter, despite freezing in snowless winters, it grows quickly.

The scientific name, as well as the popular name of this gorse, yellow dye flower, is due to the presence of a persistent yellow dye in it, which was used to dye silk and linen fabrics.

There are a number of attractive garden forms and varieties, for example:

Humiliore , a dwarf cultivar with light red flowers and shaggy, silky beans;

profusely blooming golden-orange Royal Gold ;

Compacta , with a compact upright bush;

Captivity , undersized, with large bright yellow flowers;

Alperis , with outstretched stems.

German gorse (G. germanica L) , a plant up to 60 cm high with pubescent erect branches and lanceolate sessile leaves up to 2 cm long, covered with dense pubescence from below, with green spines at the base. Golden-yellow inflorescences appear from early summer to late July or mid-August. Every year the shoots freeze over, but in the spring they recover and bloom.

Spanish gorse (G. hispanica L.) , dense bush up to 0.5 m tall with creeping branches and small leaves prickly at the base. It blooms in waves, in early summer and early autumn, the flowers are large, up to 1 cm in diameter, collected in dense inflorescences.

Forest gorse (G. sylvestris, G. dalmatica) , a dwarf species blooming in June-July with drooping shoots and bright yellow flowers.

Among rare, but promising species, we can mention the radiant gorse (G. radiate) , a plant 40-80 cm tall with numerous pubescent shoots without thorns, trifoliate leaves and yellow flowers that bloom on the tops of the shoots in June and bloom for 20 days. The species is quite winter-hardy under the condition of shelter.

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