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White brooms (Retama raetam) belong to the family of the Fabacea. They are a shrub specie and reach 1-2 meters of height. When they bloom in March and April, they transform into white clouds.

After the blossoming of flowers, which are collected in pendulous dense racemes, fruits and ellipsoid buds start flowering.

They are spread in Spain, Morocco, Algeria, the Canary Islands, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Libya and Jordan, while it is present in Italy only in their subspecies R. raetam subsp. gussonei, which was believed to be only an endemism of oriental Sicily in the coastal area between Licata and Gela. In reality they are also present in Calabria, principally in the heap of Marinella in Cirò , province of Crotone (area Sic IT9320100 “Dune di Marinella”),  and along the Tyrrhenian coast in the northern area of San Ferdinando (RC) and Nicotera.

They have a high resistance to aridity and solar exposure, but it is now an endangered species.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)