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Ruscus

Family

Liliaceae

Strictly speaking, the species of this genus should be regarded as shrublike rather than as true shrubs, none having really woody stems. According to the older view the genus belongs to the Asparagus group of the Lily family, but Dr Hutchinson, in his Families of Flowering Plants (1934) removed it to a separate family, the Ruscaceae, together with Danae (q.v.) and Semele (with a single species in the Canary Islands). Like the asparagus they renew themselves by stems from the base, and the tender young shoots are eaten in some parts of Europe. They are evergreen, the ‘leaves’ mostly alternate, sometimes in whorls. These apparent leaves should properly be termed cladodes; they are modified stems, flattened and resembling leaves, and performing the same functions. The true leaves are scale-like, each bearing a cladode in its axil. Flowers with a perianth of six segments, small, inconspicuous, borne on the upper or lower surface of the cladode, usually at its centre, each inflorescence subtended by a bract that varies in size and texture according to the species. Mostly the flowers are unisexual and borne on different plants. Hence the rarity of fruits on the two commonly cultivated species. The filaments of the stamens are united into a hollow column; this column is present in flowers of both sexes, but only in male flowers does it bear anthers. Ovary in female flowers concealed at the base of the staminal column; style short with a globose or mushroom-shaped stigma. The fruits are red berries.

The genus ranges from Madeira to Iran and contains about six species. The most important work on it is: P. F. Yeo, ‘A Contribution to the Taxonomy of the Genus Ruscus’, in Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edin., Vol. 28 (1968), pp. 237-64. This work deals principally with the series Simplices (stems unbranched; cladodes unarmed, bearing the inflorescences on the upper or lower side), to which all the species treated here belong, except R. aculeatus, which, with the little known R. hyrcanus Voronov, forms the series Ramosae (stems branched; cladodes armed; inflorescence always on the upper side of the cladode).

The commonly cultivated species thrive in almost any soil and are admirable in very shady places. The best time to break up the plants for propagation is spring.

Species articles