BUXAGEAE. 



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. Leaf-scars 

 opposite, minute, crescent-shaped, 

 raised: bundle-trace 1: stipule- 

 scars 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. 



