Genista januensis

Genista januensis

 Ssp januensis: Yer borcağı; Ssp lydia: Geyik borcağı

 
Procumbent or erect shrub, 10-200 cm, stems ridged but not winged. Leaves 3-15 x 1-2 mm, simple, linear-oblong, linear-oblanceolate or very narrowly elliptic, subglabrous or with sparse hairs. Flowers in short racemes of 2-8 flowers on slender, flexuous, ascending or lateral branches. Bracts foliaceous; bracteoles up to 1 mm; pedicels 1-2 mm. Calyx 3,5-5 mm, glabrous or with sparse hairs. Standard 10-12 mm, broadly ovate, glabrous, as long as the keel. Legume narrowly oblong, glabrous, several-seeded. Two varieties may be recognised from Turkey:
1. Flowers mostly borne on short lateral branches; calyx usually glabrous with ciliate veins ........var. lydia
1. Flowers borne on long , ascending, flexuous-filiform branches; calyx sparsely hairy  ............var. antiochia
Latakia. E. Medit. element.
G. lydia is very variable in habit, from procumbent with ascending flowering twigs, to erect, up to 2 m, with rather stiff, straight branches. Plants with the latter facies from the Balkans have been distinguished as var. rumelica  Bornm. in Mitt. Thilr. Bot. Ver., 31 , and such forms probably occur in Turkey. Notes on the habit of specimens by collectors would be useful for this species.