Ruscaceae (rus-KAY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Clasping or sheathing leaves
- Some without true leaves
- Similar sepals and petals
Description (Jepson)
- Monocotyledons (monocots) – monocots are a major lineage of flowering, mostly herbaceous plants, generally characterized by
- Single seed leaf (cotyledon)
- Linear or oblong leaves with parallel venation
- Flower parts in threes
- Pollen grains with a single pore
- Vascular bundles scattered in stem
- Fibrous root system
- Perennial herbs or shrubs
- Grows from seeds or rhizomes (horizontal underground stems)
- Leaves
- 2-15 basal or stem (cauline) leaves
- Stem leaves clasping or sheathing the stem or reduced to scales
- 2-15 basal or stem (cauline) leaves
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is a panicle (branching stem with flowers opening from the bottom up) or raceme (unbranched stem with stalked flowers opening from the bottom up)
- Bisexual or unisexual, radially-symmetric flowers
- Parts in fours or sixes
- Petals and sepals (outer flower parts) in 2 separate whorls, similar in appearance and collectively called tepals
- Colors usually white to pinkish
- Ovary superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit is of 2 types
- Berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall)
- Papery capsule (a dry, multi-chambered fruit that splits open at maturity)
© OThomé
Notes
- Approximately 475 species
- Found in the Northern Hemisphere, southern Africa, and northern Australia
- Includes Solomon’s seal (Maianthemum species) and bear grass (Nolina species)
- Some genera are “switch plants,” which lack true leaves and substitute flattened, green stems for photosynthesis
- Called variously cladodes, cladophylls, or phylloclades, from the Greek klados, “branch” and phyllo, “leaf”
- Some cladodes look very much like true leaves, e.g. butcher’s broom (Ruscus aculeatus)
- Scientific name from included genus Ruscus, from the Latin name for plants in this genus
- Common name from various Old World butcher’s broom plants (Ruscus species), whose flat, stiff branches were bundled to make small brooms (Engles 2010)
- Butchers used the brooms to sweep and clean their cutting blocks
- Cleansing was not only accomplished mechanically as the plants contain an antibacterial essential oil
- In the past, variously classified in the Lily family (Liliaceae), and now sometimes treated as a subfamily of the Asparagus family (Asparagaceae)
- Represented by 2 species at Edgewood
Specific References
Engels, G. 2010. Butcher’s broom (Ruscus aculeatus). HerbalGram 85: 1-4. American Botanical Council.
Missouri Botanical Garden. Ruscus aculeatus. Plant Finder.
Thomé, O.W. 1885. Ruscus aculeatus [Illustration]. Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz. Gera, Germany. Public Domain.
Watson, L. and M.J. Dallwitz. 1992 onward. Angiosperm families – Ruscaceae Spreng. The Families of Flowering Plants.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
