APETAL^ 239 



Isles owing to its former use as a hedgerow or border 

 shrub, a practice greatly increased with the advent 

 of Dutch gardening. It lends itself very admirably 

 to the shears and to shaping and trimming, an 

 essential in this mode of gardening, better perhaps 

 for permanence than the Yew. 



Though widespread in plantations and woods owing 

 to the above circumstance the Box is truly native 

 only in a few English counties, Surrey (Box Hill), 

 Kent, Bucks, and Gloucester. Elsewhere it is only 

 naturalised in shrubberies, etc. 



The habitat is chalk downs or oolite hills, where 

 the Box forms a dense wood or scrub. It is found on 

 chalk in chalk scrub. 



Box is a shrub or small tree in habit. The wood 

 is close-grained. The branches are erect or drooping. 

 The young branches are downy. The plant is an 

 evergreen. The leaves are alternate, oblong to ovate, 

 thick and leathery, bright green, shining so that snow 

 falls off, blunt or notched. The leaf-stalks are fringed 

 with hairs. 



The flowers are green or white, in small spikes, 

 crowded, stalkless. The bracts are blunt. The 

 plant is monoecious. There are several male and 

 one to two female flowers above, in the same cluster 

 in the axils. The male flowers have one small bract 

 below the perianth, there being three in the case of 

 the female flowers. The perianth-lobes are blunt, 

 the perianth being four-cleft. There are four stamens 

 and three styles. The stamens project some distance. 



