Plantae > Tracheophyta > Liliopsida > Asparagales > Asparagaceae > Ruscus > Ruscus aculeatus

Ruscus aculeatus (Butcher's Broom)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Ruscus aculeatus, known as butcher's-broom, is a low evergreen Eurasian shrub, with flat shoots known as cladodes that give the appearance of stiff, spine-tipped leaves. Small greenish flowers appear in spring, and are borne singly in the centre of the cladodes. The female flowers are followed by a red berry, and the seeds are bird-distributed, but the plant also spreads vegetatively by means of rhizomes. Ruscus aculeatus occurs in woodlands and hedgerows, where it is tolerant of deep shade, and also on coastal cliffs. It is also widely planted in gardens, and has spread as a garden escapee in many areas outside its native range.
View Wikipedia Record: Ruscus aculeatus

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-High
Dispersal Mode [5]  Endozoochory, Zoochory
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Dioecious
Hazards [2]  The berries are purgative;
Leaf Type [2]  Evergreen
Lifespan [3]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Insects, Lepidoptera
Structure [2]  Shrub
Usage [2]  Mature shoots are bound into bunches and used as scourers or as besoms;
Height [2]  30 inches (0.75 m)
Width [2]  39 inches (1 m)
Light Preference [4]  Mostly Shady
Soil Acidity [4]  Mostly Acid
Soil Fertility [4]  Mostly Infertile
Soil Moisture [4]  Moist
View Plants For A Future Record : Ruscus aculeatus

Protected Areas

Predators

External References

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3PLANTATT - Attributes of British and Irish Plants: Status, Size, Life History, Geography and Habitats, M. O. Hill, C. D. Preston & D. B. Roy, Biological Records Centre, NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (2004)
♦ 4ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 5Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0