Identification requested

Many, many years ago I purchased a small plant, labelled a "broom" by the local shop which sold it, which grew into a very handsome, rather tall, shrub bearing large sprays of sweetly-scented lemon-yellow flowers unlike any other broom that I know of. Unfortunately a rather hard winter put paid to its existence. I've often wondered whether this plant was,indeed, a broom and, if not, what it might have been. I wonder if anybody would like to hazard a guess from my rather vague description.

 

There are 4 types of broom like-shrubs: Cytisus, Genista, Ruscus and Spartium. Ruscus is unlikely from your description, Spartium is the spanish broom which has fragrant flowers, Genistas are also fragrant, no fragrance is mentioned with cytisus. Sorry I can't be of more help.

 

If it had larger than normal leaves of a silvery hue, then it sounds rather like Cytisus battandieri, the so called Pineapple broom.

 

Thanks for these suggestions. I've looked up web images and it definitely wasn't Spanish Broom. The Pineapple Broom looks more like I remembered it but seemed to recall that it was covered in many more flowers than in any of the images I found which tended to hang from the plant. Perhaps my memory is playing tricks.

 

I'm sure Palustris is right. It can be a pretty big bush, and looks like no other broom I've come across. The scent is quite remarkable!