OLASS XXII, ORDER ll. ] RUSCUS. Va 
drink, resembling lemonade, is made from them; and the Kamtschat- 
dales not only eat them with their fish, and make them into puddings 
with lily bulbs, but use them also for dyeing their clothes a black 
colour ; and it is stated by Gunner in his Fl. Norweg. that they make 
a part of the food of the Norwegian Laplanders, and that a sort of 
wine has been prepared from them for about six hundred years past 
in Iceland, as well asin Norway. Otter and sable skins are reported 
to be dyed black with crow-berries. The slender stems and branches 
are very strong and tough; and Mr. Neile says that he saw at Deer- 
ness, in Orkney, very strong ropes, well calculated for different pur 
poses in rural economy, made from the shoots of the crow-berry. 
GENUS Ill. RUS’CUS.—Linn. Buicher's-broom. 
Nat. Ord. Smita'cEx. Br. 
Gen. Cuan. Perianth single, of six pieces, on the front of the 
leaves, generally expanding. Sarren flowers with the filaments 
combined at the base. Anthers three to six. Fertile flowers 
with a single style and stigma. Nectary tubular. Fruit a 
globose tliree celled berry, each cell two-seeded—Name, 
“anciently Bruscus, from Beus-kelen ; in Celtic, Box Holly.’— 
Hooker. 
1. R&R. aculea'tus, Linn. (Fig. 1541.) Common Butcher's-broom. 
Stem rigid, branched; leaves ovate, acuminate, very rigid and pun 
gent, bearing a solitary flower on their surface, with minute scarious 
scales at the base. 
English Botany, t. 560.—English Flora, vol. iv. p. 234.—Hooker, 
British Flora, ed. 4. vol. i. p. 875.—Lindley, Synopsis, p. 270. 
Root of numerous long fleshy branched fibres. Stem round, green, 
furrowed, much branched, about two feet high. Leaves numerous, 
scattered, of a firm rigid texture, dark green, quite smooth, ovate, 
acuminate, with rigid pungent point, numerously ribbed, keeled at 
the back, on a short footstalk, with a pale membranous lanceolate 
stipule at the base. lower solitary, small, pale green or white, 
arising from the disk of the leaf, sessile, with several small membra- 
nous scales at the base, one of them rigid, spiny. Fruit a globose 
berry, of a fine scarlet colour, three celled, six seeded, but seldom 
perfecting more than one, the size of a small cherry. 
Habitat.—Bushy and heathy places, especially in a sandy soil ; 
abundant in the Southern parts of England; rare in Scotland. 
Bothwell Wood, Skelton Wood, near Ayr. 
Shrub ; flowering in March. 
After the berry is formed the leaf turns round, so that the under 
surface becomes the upper, by which means the berry is protected 
i 
