Climbing butcher's broom
Semele androgyna
Family · Asparagaceae · Irritating
The climber whose leaves are not leaves: they are flattened branches, and the flowers are born in the middle of them, on the surface, which happens in nothing else.
Oak woods · Scrubland · Walls and rocks
Also known assemele, Madeira butcher's broom
How to tell it
A woody climber to six metres. What look like leaves are cladodes, branches flattened into leaf shape, leathery and green. The minute greenish flowers are born on the edge and the face of these false leaves, which is impossible on a true leaf and settles the identification. Round red berries. Range: Madeira and the Canaries.
What it is confused with
Butcher's broom
Ruscus aculeatus
Both do the same trick: flowers in the middle of false leaves. Mainland butcher's broom is a low stiff shrub with a spine-tipped point; this climbs metres and does not prick. Both bear red berries that are not eaten.
Open sheet →What it is for
No food use. The red berries are not eaten, as in the other plants of this group. The stems were used in basketry and as brooms, and it is a cousin of mainland butcher's broom, which does the same flattened-branch trick but without climbing.