Laburnum
genus of plants
Laburnum, sometimes called golden chain or golden rain, is a genus of two species of small trees in the subfamily Faboideae of the pea family Fabaceae. The species are Laburnum anagyroides—common laburnum and Laburnum alpinum—alpine laburnum. They are native to the mountains of Southern Europe.
Some botanists include a third species, Laburnum caramanicum, but this native of southeast Europe and Anatolia is usually treated in a distinct genus Podocytisus, more closely allied to the Genisteae (brooms).
Description
The Laburnum trees are deciduous. The leaves are trifoliate, somewhat like a clover; the leaflets are typically 2–3 cm (3⁄4–1+1⁄4 in) long in L. anagyroides and 4–5 cm (1+1⁄2–2 in) long in L. alpinum.
They have yellow pea-flowers in pendulous leafless racemes 10–40 cm (4–15+1⁄2 in) long in spring, which makes them very popular garden trees. In L. anagyroides, the racemes are 10–20 cm (4–8 in) long, with densely packed flowers; in L. alpinum the racemes are 20–30 cm (8–12 in) long, but with the flowers sparsely along the raceme. The fruit develops as a pod and is extremely poisonous.
The yellow flowers are responsible for the old poetic name 'golden chain tree' (also written as golden chaintree or goldenchain tree).
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Laburnum” as genus of plants. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as genus of plants. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q147184. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Laburnum” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.