An evergreen shrub 3 or 4 ft (perhaps more) high; young shoots, leaves and inflorescence glabrous. Leaves pinnate, 11⁄4 to 2 in. long, having usually seven, nine, or eleven leaflets, which are wedge-shaped, tapering from the broad truncate apex (which has a tiny mucro) to a very short stalk; 1⁄4 to 3⁄4 in. long, 1⁄4 to 3⁄8 in. wide; bright green above, rather glaucous beneath. Flowers fragrant, borne in an umbellate cluster ten to fourteen together at the end of a common stalk that is 3 in. or more long; they are rich bright yellow, each about 1⁄2 in. long. Pod slender, curved, 1 to 11⁄2 in. long, three- to six-seeded and constricted in the usual way between each seed. Bot. Mag., t. 185.
Native of Spain eastwards to Dalmatia where I have seen it growing wild near Spalato (Split); cultivated in England in 1596. It is nearly related to C. glauca and is apparently much confused with it. C. valentina is the dwarfer shrub and the leaves have more (as many as eleven) leaflets. The stipules are markedly different, being rarely more than 1⁄8 in. long, narrow and pointed in glauca, whilst in valentina they are roundish or kidney-shaped and 1⁄4 to 1⁄2 in. wide; young growing shoots are best for observing these differences as the stipules fall away later. It is on these large stipules that Lamarck’s name (given above) was based. It flowers from May to July and is a most floriferous and charmingly fragrant bush, but not quite so hardy as glauca.