Genista tinctoria - Dyer's greenweed

Dyer’s greenweed (Genista tinctoria) is a low, nitrogen-fixing deciduous shrub native to Europe, including the Mediterranean region, traditionally grown for the yellow dye extracted from its flowers and shoots.

Inputs

• Hardiness zone 4¹
• Hardiness zone 5¹
• Hardiness zone 6¹
• Hardiness zone 7¹

Outputs

• Human food¹
• Dye¹
• Medicinal use¹

Type

• Genista spp. - Genista
• Shrub
• Deciduous
• Perennial

Functions

• Nitrogen fixer¹
• Pollination¹
• Ground cover¹
• Flammable²

Footnotes

1. Genista tinctoria | Plants for a Future ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰

2. Kensington (CA) Fire Protection District, “Drought tolerant, fire resistant and highly flammable plants” (kensingtonfire.org), lists “Cytisus, Genista, Spartium” (brooms) under Highly Flammable Shrubs; corroborated by Contra Costa County Fire Protection District’s “Wildland Urban Interface Vegetation Lists,” 2021 (https://web.archive.org/web/20250504084353/https://ccfd.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/CCFD-WUI-Vegetation-Lists-2021.pdf), which rates the related broom genera Cytisus, Spartium, and Ulex as high fire hazard genus-wide; no Genista tinctoria-specific study was found ↩