Ruscus hypoglossum L.

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ruscus hypoglossum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ruscus/ruscus-hypoglossum/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

Genus

Glossary

berry
Fleshy indehiscent fruit with seed(s) immersed in pulp.
axil
Angle between the upper side of a leaf and the stem.
bract
Reduced leaf often subtending flower or inflorescence.
androdioecious
With only male or only hermaphrodite flowers on individual plants.
glabrous
Lacking hairs smooth. glabrescent Becoming hairless.
globose
globularSpherical or globe-shaped.
lanceolate
Lance-shaped; broadest in middle tapering to point.
oblanceolate
Inversely lanceolate; broadest towards apex.

References

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Credits

Article from Bean's Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles

Recommended citation
'Ruscus hypoglossum' from the website Trees and Shrubs Online (treesandshrubsonline.org/articles/ruscus/ruscus-hypoglossum/). Accessed 2024-03-28.

An evergreen shrub, 8 to 18 in. high, forming compact tufts, and increasing by new sucker growths from the sides; stem somewhat arching, as thick as a lead pencil, scarcely woody, unbranched, green. Cladodes not spiny, the lower ones narrow-oval, the upper ones oblanceolate, tapered at both ends; glabrous and glossy on both sides, with prominent longitudinal veins, 3 to 412 in. long, 1 to 112 in. wide. On the upper side is borne a leaf-like bract, lanceolate, 1 to 112 in. long, 14 to 13 in. wide, in the axil of which a few small, yellowish flowers appear in April and May. Berry red, globose, 14 to 12 in. wide.

Native of S. Europe, the Danube region and Asiatic Turkey; cultivated in Britain since the 16th century. No evergreen shrub thrives better than this in shade and in competition with the roots of greedy trees; in this is its chief value in gardens. It flowers in cultivation, but does not fruit unless both sexes are grown, being completely dioecious. Because of its large bracts it was once known as the ‘Bislingua’ or ‘Double Tongue’, one ‘tongue’ being the bract, the other the cladode.


R colchicus P. F. Yeo

Allied to the above, but with the inflorescence borne on the underside of the cladode and the inflorescence bracts shorter (to {3/8} in. long), with fewer veins (three to six). Native of the eastern Black Sea region. It was described in 1966 by Dr Yeo, who also procured plants from Russia for the University Botanic Garden, Cambridge. It had previously been confused with R. hypophyllum, although more closely related to R. hypoglossum.

R microglossus Bertol

This is intermediate between R. hypoglossum and R. hypophyllum, resembling the former in foliage and habit, but differing in the much smaller inflorescence bracts, about {1/4} to {1/2} in. long and {1/10} in. wide, with three or four pairs of veins, and in the flowers sometimes being borne on the lower surface of the cladode. It is most probably a hybrid between the two species, distributed by human agency, but possibly a relict species. It has long been cultivated and occurs apparently wild, though never far from habitations, in Italy and bordering parts of France and Yugoslavia. Only female plants are known, which may all belong to a single clone (Yeo, op. cit., pp. 254–6).