One of the most festively fashionable plants in the garden during the winter holiday season is undoubtedly, Ruscus aculeatus ‘Elizabeth Lawrence’. This amazing evergreen perennial has a wide native range through Southern Europe and into Asia, but in the wild, most plant are either male or female. They also range naturally in height from 2′ tall to 4′ tall. Many years ago, legendary NC garden writer, Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985), acquired this dwarf form that was also bisexual. In other words, it gets pregnant (fruits) without a partner. Even more interesting is that all of the fruit from this form, also produces bisexual plants. In the garden, it fruits almost all year, but the fruits seem the showiest in the fall and winter season, when there are less other plants to vie for attention.
Elizabeth obtained her specimen from her plant swapping friend, the late Cincinnati gardener, Carl Krippendorf (1875-1964). The plant-loving Krippendorf, who was president of his family’s shoe manufacturing firm, got his plant from the original discoverer, the UK’s Clarence Elliott in 1955. Elliott (1881-1969) was a renown garden writer, plant explorer, and nurseryman, who operated under the business name, Six Hills Nursery.
This amazing plant had been shared by Lawrence for years without a cultivar name, so in 1997, after we obtained a piece from Lawrence’s Charlotte garden, we christened it in her honor. While she didn’t discover the plant, it was her writing about its virtues that contributed mightily to its current popularity. Below is our garden specimen in mid-December. Winter hardiness is Zone 7a-9b.
Interesting! But the promise of viable seeds from ‘Elizabeth Lawrence’ makes me wonder why I’ve never seen seedlings from my similarly hermaphroditic, prolifically fruiting ‘Wheeler’s Variety.’ Do you know whether the latter makes viable seeds?
Both hermaphroditic forms have viable seed, but we almost never find garden seedlings. Most likely, they are eaten by critters. Only when they are gathered and sown, do they sprout.