Butcher's-broom - Ruscus aculeatus

Butcher's-broom is a bushy sub-shrub to 75cm, with glossy, lance-shaped cladophylls 2.5cm in length that give the appearance of stiff, spine-tipped leaves. The flowers are small with greeny-white petals.

As this is rare in VC55, a photo is needed for verification

Dry shady places such as woodland and scrub. It is frequently grown in gardens, and may become established where discarded or deliberately planted, or where bird-sown.

It flowers early in the year, followed by glossy red berries on female plants.

A dioecious, evergreen, rhizomatous shrub. It reproduces vegetatively by creeping rhizomes, and by seed, which may be bird-sown. 

Widespread but local in Britain.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 2 of the 617 tetrads.

In the current Checklist (Jeeves, 2011) it is listed as an Alien (neophyte)