Hairy greenweed

Genista pilosa (hairy greenweed, silkyleaf woadwaxen, creeping broom) is a low, prostrate to ascending, much-branched dwarf shrub of the legume family (Fabaceae), forming spreading mats up to 30–45 cm tall. The slender, ridged, green stems often root where they touch the ground and bear small, simple, narrowly elliptical to oblanceolate leaves about 5–10 mm long that are dark green and glabrous above but conspicuously silvery-silky beneath with appressed hairs (giving the species its name). From May to July it produces short axillary racemes of bright golden-yellow pea-like flowers usually borne in pairs or in groups of 1–3, each flower about 8–10 mm long with a silky-hairy calyx and standard petal. The fruit is a short, silky-pubescent, oblong legume pod containing 2–5 seeds. Native to western, central, and southern Europe, hairy greenweed grows on poor, dry, acidic sandy or stony soils on heaths, open pine woodland, rocky moorland, and exposed mountain slopes, and is locally cultivated as a low ornamental groundcover.