BUTCHER'S BROOM 185 



greenish-white colour, looking like little stars affixed to the 

 leaves, and as the leaves are considerably larger, and of a 

 dark sombre green they form an excellent background for 

 their display. The foliage is evergreen, very rigid in 

 character, and terminating in a very acute point. The 

 plant was called by the ancient Greeks the flowering myrtle, 

 a shrub it considerably resembles. In Germany it is the 

 Myrtendom, while in France its prickly character has earned 

 it the name of petit Houx, little holly. This prickly foliage, 

 plus Its rigid and much-branching stems, account for one 

 of its old English names, the knee-holm, while its more 

 common popular name arises from its former use in 

 cleansing the blocks of the butchers, for which its stifF 

 character and the scarifying action of its leaves would make 

 it well suited. 



In the early Autumn the three-celled berries appear in 

 the places vacated by the pistilliferous flowers. The berries 

 are of a bright scarlet colour and as large as small cherries. 

 These, therefore, from colour and size are very conspicuous, 

 and, like the flowers, are excellently displayed by the sombre 

 leaves that serve as a foil to their brilliancy of colouring. 

 This fruit is rather sweet and agreeable to the taste, but it 

 is not prudent to indulge at all freely in it. 



The butcher's broom is found fairly commonly on 

 heathy ground, and in hedges and woods In the south and 

 west of England, and especially on a gravelly soil. Its 

 young shoots have been commended as a welcome sub- 

 stitute for asparagus, but the plant, as one ordinarily sees 

 it, looks about as tempting a delicacy as scrap-iron. 



