''Retama raetam'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of ...

flowering plant Flowering plants are plants that bear flowers and fruits, and form the clade Angiospermae (), commonly called angiosperms. They include all forbs (flowering plants without a woody stem), grasses and grass-like plants, a vast majority of ...

in the family Fabaceae, native to northern Africa from the

Western Sahara Western Sahara ( '; ; ) is a disputed territory on the northwest coast and in the Maghreb region of North and West Africa. About 20% of the territory is controlled by the self-proclaimed Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), while ...

to Sudan,

Sicily (man) it, Siciliana (woman) , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = Ethnicity , demographics1_footnotes = , demographi ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a ...

, the Palestine region and

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the List of Asian countries by area, fifth-largest country in Asia ...

, and widely naturalized elsewhere. File:Osmia gracilicornis male 1.jpg, Flowers with pollinating bee, '' Osmia gracilicornis''

Taxonomy

The species was first described in 1775 by

Peter Forsskål Peter Forsskål, sometimes spelled Pehr Forsskål, Peter Forskaol, Petrus Forskål or Pehr Forsskåhl (11 January 1732 – 11 July 1763) was a Swedish-speaking Finnish explorer, orientalist, naturalist, and an apostle of Carl Linnaeus. Early ...

as ''Genista raetam''. The epithet was derived from the

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

name from the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

. Retama raetam is mentioned in the

Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible or Tanakh (;"Tanach"
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''. Hebrew: ''Tān ...

, in Books of Kings and in

Book of Job The Book of Job (; hbo, אִיּוֹב, ʾIyyōḇ), or simply Job, is a book found in the Ketuvim ("Writings") section of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and is the first of the Poetic Books in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. Scholars ar ...

. the Hebrew name is "Rotem", and the translated name is "Broom tree". . The species was transferred to ''

Retama ''Retama'' (also known as ''rotem'', he, רותם) is a genus of flowering bushes in the legume family, Fabaceae. It belongs to the broom tribe, Genisteae. ''Retama'' broom bushes are found natively in North Africa, the Levant and some parts o ...

'' by

Philip Barker-Webb Philip Barker Webb (10 July 1793 – 31 August 1854) was an English botanist. Life Webb was born to a wealthy, aristocratic family; his father was the lord of the manors of Witley and Milford, in Surrey, England. Webb was educated at Har ...

and Sabin Berthelot in part of a publication that has been dated to 1842. The species that occurs in the

Canary Islands The Canary Islands (; es, Canarias, ), also known informally as the Canaries, are a Spanish autonomous community and archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean, in Macaronesia. At their closest point to the African mainland, they are west of Mo ...

is now considered to be ''

Retama rhodorhizoides ''Retama rhodorhizoides'' is a species or subspecies of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, endemic to the Canary Islands. Taxonomy ''Retama rhodorhizoides'' was first described by Philip Barker-Webb and Sabin Berthelot in a work dated to ...

'', rather than ''R. raetam'', although the latter name has been used for Canary Island plants.

References

Genisteae Flora of North Africa Flora of Sudan Flora of Sicily Flora of Sinai Flora of Saudi Arabia Plants described in 1775 {{faboideae-stub