Broom and Gorse are two plants which particularly love light acid soils so these two are to be found all over Cheshire self-seeding on verges and waste places. The garden brooms escape too giving the multicoloured specimens which you occasionally see at the roadside. The native plant has yellow flowers often with reddish patches and blooms in April/May.

C. scoparius is found all over the mainland of Britain but is absent from some parts of central Ireland.

LHS: Near Lairg, Scotland 20th June 2006 RHS: Southport dunes 28th April 2006

Added on 9th April 2005, updated 10th December 2008, updated 21st March 2010