Dyer's broom

Genista tinctoria (dyer's broom, dyer's greenweed) is a deciduous, low-growing shrub of the legume family (Fabaceae), reaching 60–90 cm tall and spreading up to 100 cm wide. The slender, slightly hairy, ridged green branches are wiry but unarmed (lacking the spines of related brooms). Leaves are alternate, almost sessile, glabrous to slightly hairy, and narrowly lanceolate to elliptic. From late spring into mid-summer the plant bears erect terminal racemes of bright golden-yellow, pea-like flowers, each with the typical five-petalled papilionaceous form of the family. The fruit is a flattened, glabrous, shiny brown to blackish legume pod 2–3 cm long containing several seeds. Native to meadows, pastures, heaths, and open grassland across most of Europe and into Turkey, dyer's broom favours sunny situations on poor, dry, sandy or rocky soils and has long been cultivated and harvested as the source of a high-quality yellow dye, particularly when combined with woad to produce Kendal Green.