Genista anglica Petty whin

A small, evergreen, spiny shrub with wide branching, wiry stems bearing small leaves and yellow peaflowers in early summer. It is a plant of damp heathland and heathy areas in unimproved grasslands, including rhos pasture. It is an Oceanic species with a patchy distribution in Britain best represented in Wales and Scotland. It has undergone a marked decline in the last 50 years largely as a result of habitat loss resulting from agricultural improvemnets, eutrophication (particularly nitrogen enrichment) and poor management. It has been lost from many sites in West Glamorgan simply as a result of rapid successional changes in heathy grasslands which have resulted from neglect and lack of adequate grazing. Some of the best existing popultions are on the Gower Commons and in a few unimproved grasslands in the Dulais Valley in Neath Port Talbot where it grows with Dyer's Greenweed (Genista tinctoria).

Native