242 THE STORY OF PLANT LIFE 



" The basin of Box-wood, just six months before, 

 Had stood on the table at Timothy's door ; 

 A coffin through Timothy's threshold had passed, 

 One child did it bear, and that child was his last." 



Buxus SEMPERViRENS. — The illustration {Fig, 68) 

 shows the alternate, oblong leaves^ which are blunt at the 

 tip. Two fruits may be seen in the axils of leaves. 



Dog's Mercury [Mercurialis perennis). 



Pliny applied the name "Mercurialis" to this 

 plant, after the god Mercury, who was supposed to 

 have found it to be of medicinal value. The prefix 

 " Dog's " of the English name is an epithet which may 

 denote coarse or harmful, or spurious, as opposed to 

 annual Mercury. 



In Britain this plant is general as far north as the 

 Orkneys. It is found in the Highlands at an altitude 

 of 1700 ft. It occurs also in Ireland and in the 

 Channel Islands. 



Being a shade plant the habitat is woods, thickets, 

 shady places generally, hedgerows. The plant is found 

 on clay and loam in damp oakwoods, on siliceous soils 

 in sessile oakwoods, on limestone in damp ashwoods, 

 on limestone pavements, in beechwoods, on chalk 

 in chalk scrub, on marls and calcareous sandstones 

 in ash oakwoods. It also occurs in the Arctic-Alpine 

 chomophyte formation. 



From the annual Mercury this plant differs in 

 being perennial. The stem is also simple, not 



