BUXACEAE. 177 
Buxus. Box Tree. 
(Family Buxaceae). 
Shrubs or small trees: ever- 
green. Twigs very slender, green, 
flat-grooved between each pair of 
leaves: pith minute, continuous. 
Buds sessile, solitary, small, ovoid, 
with 1 or 2 pairs of visible 
scarcely specialized scales, or the 
flower-buds quickly globosely en- 
larged and multiple. lLeaf-scars 
opposite, minute, crescent-shaped, 
raised: bundle-trace 1: _ stipule- 
sears lacking. Leaves small, sub- 
elliptical, ' entire, short-petioled, 
paler beneath. 
Box, like ivy, unfortunately is 
unable to endure the winter ex- 
tremes of the North and it is 
rarely seen, at any rate far from 
the coast, except as unhappy 
stragglers or in_ satisfactorily 
grown tubbed specimens. It is 
not commonly known that it is acridly poisonous. As a rule 
winter-manuals do not concern themselves with evergreens, 
but Buxus sempervirens is included by Bosemann, 38; and 
Ward, 1:43, f. 65. Goebel, in the Botanische Zeitung for 1880, 
p. 756, points out that the buds are naked. 
Boxwood was used formerly almost exclusively for rulers, 
and is found yet in the finer draftsman’s scales. 
1. Twigs puberulent in the grooves. (1). B. sempervirens. 
Twigs glabrous: leaves rather obovate. 2. 
2. Bushy. B. japonica. 
Prostrate or small. B. microphylla. 
