C 56° ]
R U S C U S aculeatus.
Butcher's Broom.
/ v<y.
D ICE C IA Syngenejia.
Gen. Char. Male. Cal. o f 6 leaves. Cor. none.
Ne&ary ovate, tubular, bearing the ftamina. F e male.
Cal. Cor. and Nett, as in the male, but
without ftamina. Style i . Berry 3-celled. Seeds
in pairs.
Spec. Char. Leaves ovate, iharply pointed, flowering
on the upper fide without a leaflet. Branches
ftraight.
Syn. Rufcus aculeatus. Linn. Sp. PI. 1474. Hudf.
437. With. 68. Relh. 374. Sihth. 22. Smith
in Lmn. Tranf. v. 3. 334.
Rulcus, Bait Syn. 262.
a
r j T H9 U£ H ,not very common, the Butcher’s Broom is
found on thrubby heaths and in thickets in fo many parts of
England, as to render the indication of any particular place
fuperfluous It flowers in March and April, and the root is
perennial The plant itfelf is biennial, and for one winter evergreen.
However rigid and firm in texture, it is truly herba-
ceous, dying down to the root after ripening its fruit. The
whole plant is devoid of pubefcence. Stems about % feet high
round, ftriated, branched, ftraight and rigid. Leaves alternate!
ipreadmgin every direftion, twifted, hard, ovate, entire, tipped
with a lharp thorn, bearing a fohtary flower about the middle of
their upper fide, whofe flower-ftalk, as Mr. Woodward has
well obierved, runs down within the outer coat of the leaf to
at a ‘ Ca > r!!f 6 g^eeR Ieaves’ the intermediate ones fmalleft.
Nectary purphfh, tubular, fwelling, bearing on its edge three
combined antherae and enclofing the rudiments of an abortive
germen. The female flowers grow on a feparate root, and have no
antherae. Germen elliptical, with a blunt nearly feflile ftigma
Berry globular, large, fcarlet, with a fweet pulp, enclofing one
or two large, finning, globular, almoft tranfparent feeds, for moft
of the mdiments of the feeds, originally fix, prove abortive.
1 he root has been ufed medicinally to remove obftru&ions
ot the liver principally; one certain ufe of the plant at leall
is its removing all obftruHions from the unequal furface of a
butcher s block, as exprefled m the Englilh name.
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