86 photographs › At a glance
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About the genus · Genista
Genista is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae, native to open habitats such as moorland and pasture in Europe and western Asia. They include species commonly called broom, though the term may also refer to other genera, including Cytisus and Chamaecytisus. Brooms in other genera are sometimes considered synonymous with Genista: Echinospartum, Retama, Spartium, Stauracanthus, and Ulex.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Genista", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,769 mm of 2,299 mm) falls in October to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 14.1 °C against a yearly mean of 15.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: April to September.
Rain
2,299 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,769 mm of it October to March. Wettest month December at 391 mm, driest month July at 18 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,478 mm to 2,730 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 2,315 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 2,299 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 47 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 11.3 °C in February (across the grid cells of the range 8.4 °C to 14.3 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 22.8 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 11.3 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, February, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell that is mostly sea and are not used.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 62 to 66% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light. CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Temperature. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 14 °C in Jan and Feb to 23 °C in Aug; mean nightly low from 11 °C in Feb to 19 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 2,299 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 24 habitat cells. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 14 / 12–17 | 14 / 12–17 | 15 / 13–17 | 15 / 13–17 | 17 / 15–19 | 20 / 19–21 | 22 / 22–23 | 23 / 22–23 | 21 / 20–23 | 19 / 17–21 | 17 / 14–20 | 15 / 12–18 |
| Night °C | 12 / 9–15 | 11 / 8–14 | 12 / 9–15 | 12 / 9–15 | 13 / 11–16 | 16 / 15–18 | 18 / 18–19 | 19 / 18–20 | 18 / 16–21 | 16 / 14–19 | 14 / 11–18 | 13 / 10–16 |
| Rain mm | 273 / 175–319 | 281 / 182–326 | 233 / 147–275 | 191 / 115–233 | 113 / 68–133 | 57 / 38–68 | 18 / 12–23 | 25 / 19–31 | 126 / 85–145 | 271 / 176–316 | 320 / 209–383 | 391 / 253–484 |
| DLI | 19 / 16–22 | 24 / 22–28 | 32 / 30–35 | 38 / 36–40 | 43 / 42–44 | 45 / 45–46 | 47 / 46–47 | 43 / 41–44 | 35 / 33–37 | 27 / 24–29 | 20 / 17–23 | 17 / 14–20 |
| RH % | 64 / 59–67 | 64 / 61–67 | 62 / 59–65 | 63 / 59–66 | 64 / 60–67 | 63 / 60–67 | 62 / 55–65 | 62 / 57–65 | 64 / 61–67 | 65 / 61–68 | 64 / 61–67 | 66 / 61–68 |
The daily extremes were read at a NASA POWER cell that is 12% land: neither it nor the next candidates whose coldest month's mean nightly low is within 2 °C of the median across cells sit in a POWER cell that is mostly land, and the rule reads a cold floor only from a cell that is mostly land, so none is read for this species. Nor is the coldest month's mean nightly low taken as one: it is a mean of a month's lows, not its coldest night. What that cell gave over 44 years: absolute minimum 8.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 21.5 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Vítor Jorge, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Rob Felix, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Daucus decipiens Black parsley Photo: CC BY, Leon Perrie
Vaccinium padifolium Madeiran blueberry Photo: CC BY, Paul Dufour
Aichryson divaricatum Crassulaceae Photo: CC BY, Rob Felix
Sonchus fruticosus Shrubby Sow-thistle Photo: CC BY, Vítor Jorge
Genista maderensis Madeira Dyer's greenweed Photo: CC BY, Vítor Jorge
Geranium maderense Giant herb-robert Photo: CC BY, Vítor JorgeOther Genista 35 in the reference
Genista acanthoclada Thorny Broom Photo: CC0, author not stated
Genista albida White Genista Photo: CC BY, Roman
Genista anglica Petty whin Photo: CC0, author not stated
Genista canariensis Canary broom Photo: CC BY, Elizabete Marchante
Genista carinalis Fabaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz
Genista cinerea Ash-coloured Broom Photo: CC BY, Louis Aureglia
Genista depressa Fabaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Југ Genista dorycnifolia Fabaceae 
Genista etnensis Fabaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, H. Zell
Genista falcata Fabaceae Photo: CC BY, Diego Rodríguez Hernández
Genista florida Floriferous Greenweed Photo: CC BY, Carminda Santos
Genista germanica Fabaceae Photo: CC BY, Николай Соболев all 36 ›Names & registers
Also known as Cytisus congestus; Cytisus tener; Cytisus virgatus; Galactia tenera; Genista congesta and 8 more. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 6 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (6 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 33.00_-16.875, lapse-corrected +471 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: NASA POWER's cell is mostly sea (12% land), so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 14 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.