How do you recognise White Spanish broom (Cytisus multiflorus)?

Leaf

Liliane Roubaudi, Tela Botanica · CC BY-SA 2.0

White Spanish broom

Cytisus multiflorus

Also known as: Portuguese broom, White broom

Family: Fabaceae

1 to 3 m tall

Informal hedges, banks, gardens, poor, acid soils

Flowering: April – May

Full sun

Hardy to -18°C

❓ How do you recognise this plant?

In full flower, its shoots disappear entirely under a mass of white flowers. Common broom has bright yellow flowers, solitary or in pairs, along angular green shoots, whereas the white Spanish broom (white broom) bears clusters of white flowers on a leafier shrub.

🍃 Leaves

Deciduous, small, trifoliate, grey-green, sparse

🌸 Flowers

Numerous small white pea-shaped flowers, completely covering the shoots

🍎 Fruits

Small hairy pods

🪵 Bark

Fine, angular shoots, grey-green, not spiny

🗺️ Distribution

Iberian Peninsula; grown in France as an ornamental, little naturalised.

🐝 Value for pollinators

Abundant white flowering in spring, very rich in nectar, visited by bees and bumblebees.

✂️ Horticultural uses

Planted in a border or informal hedge for its snowy spring flowering.

⚠️ Possible toxicity

Seeds toxic if eaten (cytisine-type alkaloids), as in other brooms.

⚠️ Look-alike species

White Spanish broom

Cytisus multiflorus

Common broom

Cytisus scoparius

Common broom has bright yellow flowers, solitary or in pairs, along angular green shoots, whereas the white Spanish broom (white broom) bears clusters of white flowers on a leafier shrub.

🌿 Other Fabaceae to discover

Styphnolobium japonicum

ℹ️ Educational profile — do not use it to judge whether a plant is edible or safe.

🌱 This database is constantly evolving — species and information are added and corrected regularly. Spotted a mistake? Report it below.