BOX 53 



Box grows 8-15 ft. high. The flowers are in bloom in April. 

 Box is an evergreen shrub, easy to propagate by cuttings, and useful 

 for edging or Dutch gardening for parterres, &c. 



Being a monoecious plant the flowers are unisexual, in heads. The 

 female terminal flower with 3 bracts is surrounded by male flowers with 

 i bract, and with honey in both sexes. There are 4 hypogynous stamens 

 with stout anther-stalks, and the anthers open towards the centre in 

 the male flowers. The stamens are projecting, the anthers in pairs. 

 In the female there are 3 styles, spreading and grooved. The flowers 

 are crowded. The stigmas mature first. The pollen is dry and dust- 

 like. The hive bee moistens it with honey and brushes it on its hind- 

 legs. 



The fruit opens explosively, the inner layer of the pericarp separates 

 from the outer and U-shaped, folded layer, as in the Violet, causing 

 the propulsion, the capsule becoming dry and tense. 



Box is a lime-loving plant, and almost limited to the chalk forma- 

 tion, growing on a lime soil. 



A cluster-cup fungus, Puccinia buxi, attacks the leaves, and Box is 

 galled by Diplosis buxi. 



Two Homopterous insects, Psylla buxi, Pinnaspis buxi, and a 

 Heteropterous insect, Gonocerus venator, are found on it. 



BuxuSy Pliny, is the Latin name for the plant, and the second Latin 

 name refers to its perennial character. 



This neat shrub is called Dwarf .Box, Box-tree, Bush-tree, 

 Dudgeon. In regard to the last, which is the root or wood of Box, 

 " Turners and cutters, if I mistake not the matter, so call this wood 

 Dudgeon, wherewith they make Dudgen-hafted daggers ", according 

 to Gerarde. 



Box was used for hedging, being easy to clip and cut, a practice in 

 vogue since Roman times called topiary work, a friend of Julius Caesar's 

 inventing the method. The wood is close-grained, and used for wood 

 engraving, mathematical instruments, combs, pipes, flutes, inlay work, 

 as in Evelyn's day, wheels, swivels, pins, pegs, nut-crackers, button 

 moulds, weavers' shuttles, rulers, boot-trees, rolling-pins, pestles, tables, 

 chessmen, screws, bobbins, spoons, knife-handles. The Dwarf Box 

 was cut into animal shapes in gardens, c. It has been used in 

 medicine for colic, fever, madness. Corsican honey was derived from 

 the Box, it is said. 



ESSENTIAL SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: 



275. Buxus sempervirens, L. Evergreen tree, branched, leaves 

 shiny, alternate, oblong, flowers in axillary clusters, anthers sagittate. 



