Butcher’s-broom

It is found in shady and dry places in shrublands and forests. One of the most common shrubs of Paggaio in the understory of oak forests, deciduous broadleaf and beech forests. It can be found both at low altitudes where it occurs in shrublands or pine reforestation and at higher altitudes, where it occurs in deciduous broadleaf forests.

So far it has been recorded in many places with a significant number of individuals. Dark green, evergreen, erect shrub known as hare apple. Theophrastus (4th century BC), had identified the peculiarity of the butcher’s-broom which “… has the fruit from the back of the leaf”. Indeed, if you look at the leaves of this shrub you will see that in the middle of them there is a flower that then becomes a dark red spherical fruit, a berry, red with the size of a small cherry! Of course, in reality what you see are flattened shoots that look like leaves and serve photosynthesis, known as “leaf branches”. The actual leaves are small membranous scales. Its leaf branches are ovate to lanceolate, hard, spiky at the apex, without petiole, with a bract on its upper surface, in the armpit of which short-stemmed flowers grow. It is collected as a medicinal and as a decorative plant at Christmas. During the Middle Ages, its young shoots were eaten boiled in some parts of Europe. Since the antiquity, the above-ground parts and the root are mentioned as diuretics and laxatives and the plant is generally considered to have a positive effect on varicose veins and haemorrhoids. In Europe, one of its traditional uses, as its common name (butcher’s-broom) states, was to collect its flat and rigid branches and use them to create a small broom that butchers used to wipe off leftover meat from wooden cutting benches.

Due to its relatively wide distribution on Mount Paggaio, no particular threats and pressures were observed or reported, which could lead to a significant reduction in its population.

LC-Least Concern.

The butcher’s broom is protected under the 92/43/EEC Directive (Annex V). Also, it is assigned to the “Least Concern” (LC) category by IUCN.