Displaced blowfly on an odd asparagus

There are six species of Ruscus, mostly from the Mediterranean region (Madeira to southern Europe and Iran) where they grow in the shade under woodland trees. 

They spread through the woodlands, and our gardens, by underground stems (rhizomes), making them a little difficult to remove when you decide you've had enough. As had a past colleague of mine, Pat Houlcroft, when he sent a note to me recently from his home on the upper North Shore of Sydney.

Pat spoke of the effort required to move what is commonly called Butcher's Broom, but also the fascinating 'displaced flower'. This flower looks like it is in the wrong place, protruding out from the middle of a leaf.

In fact, it arises from the middle of a modified stem, called a cladode, that looks like a leaf. The actual leaves are small brown scales at at the base of the cladode. They look like this:

There are a few flowers inserted under a pointy green protrusion called a bract, which is not unlike the true leaf. The flowers are usually all male, or all female, with the sexes mostly on separate plants - although plants have been selected in horticulture with flowers containing male and female parts. The fruit, when present, is a cheery red berry. 

Ruscus aculeatus, with ripe berry

I've always know this plant - or group of plants - as Blowfly Bush. As you approach the bush it looks like there are flies, or some other insect, sitting in the middle of the leaves. Closer inspection reveals a cluster of dainty flowers, or late in the season (these pictures where all taken in December) their dried remains.

While the flowers - dead or alive - do look insect-like, they don't really resemble a fly. As you can see by comparing the top-of -the-post picture, with a fly posing on a cladode, and the remains of the flowers on the leaf below.

Most of these photographs here are of a hybrid between Ruscus hypoglossum and Ruscus hypophyllum called Ruscus x microglossus (yes the Latin ending '-us' is different to the other two '-um's, but we'll leave that to the ancient-language scholars).

We have the two parent species and this hybrid growing in Melbourne Gardens, as well as the relatively common Ruscus aculeatus. I was lucky enough to find two fruits on our specimen of that species, one red (two pictures above), one green. Here is what the leaves of that species look like, followed by the other two.

Ruscus aculeatus

Ruscus hypoglossum

Ruscus hypophyllum

Ruscus is in the Asparagaceae family, grouped most closely (subfamily Nolinoideae) with mondo grass and a distinctive succulent I've posted on previously. None of these share the odd floral apparatus and positioning found in Butcher's Broom, although the botanists at Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh reckon those bracts inserted at the base the flowers are reminiscent of the namesake of its family, the asparagus.