A leguminous shrub with thick, blue-green, evergreen leaves. Coronilla naturally forms an attractive dense mound covered in scented bright yellow pea-like flowers in spring and early summer. It grows up to 1 metre in height and spread, but normally under natural rainfall it will be smaller than this. After the flowers, it produces slender brown pods of seeds. It is supposedly fragrant during the day and not at night.

Pruning of old and ‘leggy’ plants is easy, and they will reshoot vigorously after such treatment. A native to Portugal and the Mediterranean Basin, this is an easy to grow plant in unimproved soils. As they self-seed easily, they can be used to help re-establish vegetation on old farmland or degraded land. It can also be used as a pioneer plant on slopes as it thrives in poor, stony, well-drained soils. Offering all year shelter, it is excellent for bees and insects as well as other native wildlife.