Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 739 (1753).

Derivation: Greek kytisos, name of a fodder-plant believed to be Medicago arborea L.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Brooms.

Description:
Small shrubs or trees of very diverse habit, branches often ribbed; leaves petiolate, usually trifoliolate; stipules generally adnate to the leaf-base or lacking.

Flowers white or yellow, rarely pink to purplish, in terminal racemes or heads or more often in the axils of frequently modified leaves; bracts and bracteoles inserted on the pedicel; calyx campanulate or tubular, 2-lipped, up to two-thirds as long as the corolla; upper lip with 2 small teeth, lower shortly 3-toothed; standard usually orbicular to obovate; keel oblong-falcate; stamens monadelphous, anthers alternately basifixed and longer and dorsifixed and shorter; ovary with a slender style; stigma terminal, introrse or extrorse.

Pods chartaceous to slightly coriaceous, sessile or shortly stipitate, usually oblong, often slightly curved, dehiscent; seeds ovate-oblong or obliquely elliptic, usually arillate.

Distribution:  About 60 species in Europe, North Africa and the Canary Islands, a few species extending into the Middle-East.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:

1. Flowers white; calyx tubular, deeply 2-lipped, hairy, deciduous; style merely incurved; branchlets not strongly angular	C. proliferus 1.
1. Flowers yellow; calyx campanulate, shortly 2-lipped, more or less glabrous, persistent; style coiled into a circle; branchlets strongly 5-angled	C. scoparius 2.

Author: Not yet available