Jews’-myrtle

(jéz’mér’tl), nm. 1. The prickly- leafed plant Ruscus aculeatus.——2, A three leafed variety of Myrtus communis. Jews’-stone, Jew-stone (jéz’ston, j6’ston), n.. The clavated fo il spine of a very large egg shaped echinus. It is a regular figure, oblong and rounded, about three fourths of an inch long and half an inch in diameter. Its color is a pale dusky gray, with a tinge of red. 2. The basalt capping the coal-measures on the Titter stone and Brown Clee hills in Shropshire, England; also, the local name of a limestone bed belonging to the White Lias (Rhetic) in Somersets hire. [Local, Eng.]