290 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
All the plants of this family are left pretty much 
alone by herbivorous creatures on account of their 
poisonous qualities, even the insects that will attack 
them being very few in number. The well-known 
Box (Buaxus sempervirens) is even more free from 
insect-attacks than the Spurges, the odour from the 
living tree being sufficient to keep them off. This, 
too, is a shrub of very limited range in this country 
in a truly wild condition, being confined to the chalk 
hills of Surrey, Kent, Bucks, and Gloucestershire, 
though it has become naturalised in many other 
places. Here, as in the Spurges, the whitish flowers 
are male or female, borne in small crowded spikes, of 
which the uppermost are females and the lower males. 
Here it will be seen is sufficient security against self- 
fertilisation, for the pollen from the male flowers 
cannot fall upon the stigmas of the higher flowers. 
In these Box-flowers there are sepals, but no petals. 
The male flower has but four sepals and four stamens 
to match, with a rudimentary ovary; but in the 
female flowers the sepals vary from four to twelve, and 
there are three spreading styles whose inner surfaces 
are the stigmas. 
The two species of Mercury (Mercurialis perennis 
et annua) have inconspicuous minute green flowers, 
with three sepals and from eight to twenty stamens. 
They grow among weeds at the hedge-foot, and are as 
arule left severely alone by browsing animals, who 
will eat down the plants all round and leave the 
Mercury standing. 
The Nettle family consists of plants whose pollen 
is carried by the wind, in some cases to distinct plants, 
so that cross-fertilisation may be effected. There is, 
