The crazy broom (Osyris alba) is a glabrous, dioecious shrub (the gonads and thus the male and female gametes are in separate individuals), similar in appearance to the broom (therefore called white broom and crazy broom, although it does not belong to its family, papilonaceae, but to the santalaceae), with numerous branches striated longitudinally. The stems are angular from which slender, straight green branches emerge. The leaves are alternate, simple, linear, lanceolate, almost leathery, persistent, although sometimes falling, and with the central nerve patent. Both feminine and moreculinary flowers appear in top-type inflorescences. The female flowers at the end of the short foliate branches, often domed, trimeras and with three short stigmas, ovaries inserted into the calyx. Male flowers in clusters forming unilateral clusters with calyx-shaped perianth, trimer. Three short stamens with wide filaments. In the male flowers the gynaeceum is atrophied and the female flowers on the contrary. The fruit, very characteristic, is a drupe of red color, with 5-7 mm of diameter, with the rest of the corolla of annular form and a seed rugasa inside. Osyris alba is not part of any large, well-established plant community, but rather of the transit zones between holm oak, wetter kermes oak, bramble and riparian woodland. It also lives in arid and sunny areas, and its roots, equipped with haustoria, penetrate the roots of other plants, taking the sap and with it the necessary water (they are capable of producing their own sugars – in short, their own food – from the water and mineral salts they obtain from the parasitised plant). It is therefore a hemiparasite plant, capable of absorbing raw sap from the roots of neighbouring plants. It is a plant highly appreciated by birds and in the feeding of herbivorous animals in the desert areas, for its berries.