70 



THE BOX. 

 Buxus SEMPERVIRENS. 



Natural Order ETJPHOKBIACEJE. 

 Class MoN(ECiA. Order TETRANDRIA. 



MANY of my readers, probably, are acquainted with the 

 subject of the present chapter only as a neat edging for 

 flower-beds, or as a shapely bush in the formal garden of 

 some antiquated manor-house : yet the Box-tree has a very 

 good claim to be considered a native British tree. Its 

 right is certainly disputed by some of the old botanists, 

 and by the more recent authors who quote their opinions : 

 but inasmuch as it is in undeniable possession of at least 

 one extensive district in England, and has been so long 

 enough to give to that one the name of Box-hill, I think 

 we are justified in advocating its claims to be considered a 

 native tree. Besides this, not only did it give name to 

 Boxley in Kent, and Boxwell in Gloucestershire, which 

 would prove at least that it has grown at these places 

 from time immemorial, but it is expressly mentioned by 

 several authors as a native. Gerard, for instance, who 

 wrote in Elizabeth's reign, says : "Itgroweth upon sundry 

 waste and barren hills in Englande." Evelyn says : 

 " These trees rise naturally at Boxley in Kent, and in the 

 county of Surry, giving name to the chalky hill 1 (near the 

 famous Mole or Swallow) whither the ladies and gentlemen, 

 and other water-drinkers from the neighbouring Ebesham 



1 Boxhill. The Hon. Dailies Barrington, in a paper inserted in 



e Philosophical Transactions for 1769, says : "Now we happen 



to know that this hill was so called from an Earl of Arundel's " (the 



famous antiquary) "having introduced this tree in the reign of 

 James or Charles the First." Barrington does not state whence he 

 obtained his knowledge, nor does he account for the fact that a 

 naturalist of the preceding century found it growing on " the waste 

 and barren hills in Englande," at least forty years before James T. 

 came to the throne. 



