EVERGREENS AND OLD BOX 115 



should be confined to Japanese gardens or to 

 Japanese effects in large parks or gardens. The 

 majority of them are quite hardy, but if the ther- 

 mometer goes below zero the Retinisporas, the 

 most beautiful of them all, will be killed. 



Modern Box trees, that is, those grown for the 

 trade in Holland and Belgium, no matter how 

 carefully they have been trimmed, cannot give 

 the same feeling to a new yard as a few venerable 

 specimens ruthlessly torn from the garden of an 

 old farmhouse, where for a hundred years they 

 have been the features as their more fantastically 

 clipped prototypes were the features of Pliny's 

 elaborate plaisance. The Box trees grown in the 

 gardens of long ago were propagated from stock 

 of Buxus sempervirens obtained in England and 

 Holland. It is quite different in appearance from 

 most of the specimens offered in the nurseries to- 

 day, which are varieties of the old shrub, but gen- 

 erally quite dissimilar in character from their 

 common ancestor. It was used for hedges and 

 edgings, and as its habit of growth was more com- 

 pact, the leaves smaller and lying closer together, 

 and the colour richer, when carefully pleached it 



