THE BOX 



Bux'us scmpervi'rens L. 



Reckless destruction of both the commoner and the 

 more valuable kinds of timber trees has been, and 

 is, only too frequent in all parts of the world. In 

 not a few cases its effects are already being experi- 

 enced in an insufficient supply of wood either for 

 general use or for some special purposes. Before the 

 introduction of such substitutes for wood-engraving 

 as zincographs and collotypes, the carelessness as to 

 the Caucasian forests of Box excited apprehensions 

 among the consumers, and stimulated inquiry as to 

 suitable substitutes for this material. 



The Box (Buxus sempervirens L.) is a member of 

 the large and mostly acridly poisonous Order Euphor- 

 bia' cece, an Order in which the flowers are usually 

 small and inconspicuous, destitute of a corolla, and 

 sometimes of a calyx also, and having the sexes 

 divided. The genus Buxus, of which our British 

 species is the best known representative, includes 

 fewer than twenty species of evergreen shrubs, or 

 small trees. Their juice is not milky, like that of 

 the allied Spurges (Euphorbia); their leaves are 

 either opposite or alternate, leathery and glossy ; 

 and the two sexes are borne on the same plant 

 in greenish yellow flowers. They have a wide dis- 

 tribution through the Warmer-Temperate zones. 



Our native species (B. sempervirens L.) occurs in 

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