Retem

Retama raetam, the white broom or retem, is a leguminous desert shrub of the family Fabaceae native to North Africa, the eastern Mediterranean, the Sinai, the Levant, and Arabia, where it colonizes sandy plains, wadis, and dunes. It forms a dense, rounded bush of slender, whitish-green, almost leafless rush-like twigs that are heavily reduced to limit water loss; the tiny ephemeral leaves are quickly shed. In late winter and spring the shrub is smothered in masses of small, fragrant, white, pea-like flowers, each often marked with a dark spot, which give way to small rounded pods containing one or a few seeds. The plant is the broom under which the prophet Elijah rested in the Hebrew Bible. It contains quinolizidine alkaloids, chiefly sparteine, which render it toxic, and overdose can cause serious cardiac and respiratory effects.