Ruscus L.

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.