BUTCHER’S BROOM— continued. 
staminal tube is present as an investment to the ovary, but it bears no anthers ; and 
a discoid stigma surmounts a very short style. 
The ovary is three-chambered and each chamber contains two ovules ; but when 
this ovary has ripened into a scarlet juicy berry about a third of an inch in diameter, 
two of the chambers have generally been suppressed and only one or two of the six 
ovules becomes a seed. The seeds are hard, white, and semi-transparent, globular, 
if solitary, hemispherical if there are two ; and the sweet taste of the juice of the 
showy fruit suggests that birds serve as the dispersive agent. If the plant as a 
whole does not suggest a Lily, these red berries recall those ot its allies the 
Asparagus and the Lily-of-the-valley. 
The resemblance of this dwarf plant with the spinous points to its phylloclades 
and its scarlet berries to the Holly naturally attracted notice at an early date, and we 
find the name Knee-holly in vocabularies of the eleventh century. The superficial 
likeness between its phylloclades and the leaves of Myrtle gave it the early names 
of Myrtacantha , Myrtus acuta, and Myrtus sylveslris , the Spinous or Wild Myrtle, 
and in some parts of Kent it is said to be known as Jew’s Myrtle and to be 
supposed to have formed the material of the Crown of Thorns. 
The young shoots were formerly boiled and eaten like Asparagus ; but being 
bitter were considered medicinal and became known to apothecaries as Bruscum , and 
in modern Italian we have the name under the two forms Rusco and Brusco. Turner 
in his “ Names of Herbes ” says : — 
“Ruscus is called of the Poticaries Bruscum, in english buchers brome or Petigrue. Petigrue groweth in Kent wilde by 
hedge sydes.'* 
The name Petigrue means Little Holly, from the French petit and greou , an old 
name for Holly. 
Parkinson, in his “ Theatrum Botanicum ” (1640) adds : — 
“ The pliant twigges or stalkes with leaves served in former times for many uses, to binde their vines or other things, as 
Virgil his Verses doe testifie in the second of his Georgicks in these words, 
— Nec non etiam aspera Rusci , Vimina per syl'vam^ et ripis Jluvialis arundo Cedatur 
and to preserve hanged meate from Mise eating, from whence came the Italian name of Pongitopi,f and for to make Broomes 
to sweepe the house, from whence came the name of Scopa regia y but the King’s chamber is by revolution of time turned to 
the Butchers stall, for that a bundle of the stalkes tied together, serveth them to dense their stalles, and from thence have we 
our English name of Butchers Broome.” 
I have myself seen the plant put to this use not many years ago, and in 
Brittany, where it is more abundant than in England, it is used for garlands on 
festive occasions. The plant is so frequent in South London gardens that I suspect 
it to have once been common thereabouts in a wild state. It is abundant in Epping 
Forest and very luxuriant in the New Forest. 
* “ Moreover rough twines of Butcher's-broom must be cut in the woodland and the river-reed by the banks.” 
t u As if you would say Pricke-mouse, even as the Germans doe Muessdorn," (Modern German Mausdorn ; Flemish Muisdoorn.) 
