The name is a bit tricky, as our house is still in Italy, not Spain, of course.
In Italian it is called : ginestra.
Medicinal Action and Uses
(see: http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/brospa73.html)
The Spanish Broom in its medicinal properties closely resembles the common Broom, but is from five to six times more active. The symptoms produced by overdoses are vomiting and purging, with renal irritation. The seeds have been used to a considerable extent in dropsy, in the form of a tincture. The flowers yield a yellow dye.
The dried flowers of Spanish Broom are readily differentiated, those of the true Broom having a small bell-shaped calyx with two unequal lobes, the upper of which is bi-dentate and the lower minutely tridentate, while in Spartium junceum, the calyx is deeply cleft to the base on one side only.
By macerating the twigs a good fibre is obtained, which is made into thread in Languedoc, and its cord and a coarse sort of cloth in Dalmatia.
The name Spartium is from the Greek word denoting 'cardage,' in allusion to the use of the plant.
