Gorse gives one of the best displays in the UK, particularly from March to July, but you can sometimes see a few flowers on a gorse bush throughout the year. It is a common perennial shrub of heaths and embankments throughout the British Isles, and can form impenetrable thickets of bushes up to 2.5 m high. On young plants the leaves are small with three lobes, but on the more visible mature plants the leaves are sharp pointed dark green spines to about 25 mm in length, inviting you not to inspect too closely! The fruits are formed in pods which, on hot summer days, explode with an audible pop to throw the seeds over a metre from the plant. Because it can flower all year it has given rise to a saying "kissing's out of season when gorse is out of bloom" .

Flower: Little golden yellow lipped "pea" flowers to about 20 mm in length in big spiny clusters.
Leaves: Dark green spines (mature plants)
Habitat: Grassland, heaths, moors, banks.
Height to about  2.5 m
Typically flowering: All year, but particularly March - July