doi:10.3390/plants9091180engMartín Ramos, PabloMartín Gil, JesúsGómez García, DavidCuchí Oterino, José AntonioOn the physicochemical characteristics and applications of an “undesirable” Pyrenean thorny cushion dwarf: Echinospartum horridum (Vahl) RothART-2020-119249Small evergreen shrubs of the family Fabaceae represent a large proportion of current Mediterranean mountain vegetation. Their low pastoral value and tendency for encroachment makes these plants undesirable. In this paper, the thermal and chemical characteristics of Echinospartum horridum, a thorny cushion-shaped dwarf shrub native to the French Central Massif and the Pyrenees (particularly dominant in the shrublands of the Pyrenees), have been analyzed with a view to its valorization. Although the higher and lower heating values of the biomass from E. horridum met the ISO 17225-2:2014 requirements for its use in pellets, the ash content was slightly above the upper limit, so it would not comply with the normative for its acceptable use as a fuel. Nevertheless, the presence of high added-value flavonoids and lignans in its extracts, which are receiving increasing recent interest as efficient anti-tumor drugs and antivirals, may open the door to the valorization of this shrub for pharmacological applications.2020http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/9542810.3390/plants9091180http://zaguan.unizar.es/record/95428oai:zaguan.unizar.es:95428Plants 9, 9 (2020), 1180 [13 pp.]byhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess