THE BOX 125 



is a sudden change in the soil or the substratum 5 

 that the trees ripen readily their seeds, which, 

 when dropped, spring up freely. Tried by these 

 tests he decided the Chestnut, Lime, Common Elm, 

 and Box to be introduced species, whilst he con- 

 sidered the Sycamore, White Poplar, Yew, Spindle- 

 tree, and Privet to be only doubtfully native. " The 

 Box," he says, "is not mentioned by Gerard, and . . . 

 is found nowhere in an apparently wild state, except 

 on Box Hill, where it was planted by Lord Arundel, 

 who designed to build a house there, but who relin- 

 quished his intention from the want of water." 



In opposition to these arguments it may be urged 

 that some trees, such as the Lime, Spindle-tree, and 

 Yew, even in countries where they are undoubtedly 

 indigenous, seldom occur in large masses ; whilst the 

 annual ripening of fertile seed would very probably 

 cease near the margin of the geographical range of 

 a species. As to the Box, it is mentioned both by 

 Gerard and by Turner. The former speaks of it as 

 growing " upon sundry waste and barren hills in 

 Englande," but the latter, who, however, was not 

 very familiar with our south-eastern counties, says 

 that " it groweth on the mountains in Germany 

 plentifully, wild, without any setting ; but in Eng- 

 land it groweth not by itself in any place that I 

 know, though there is much of it in England." 



Parkinson (1640) writes that it is found in many 

 woods ; but a still earlier writer, Lambarde, whose 

 " Perambulations of Kent " in 1570 were published in 

 1576, is a more important witness, and one whose 

 evidence cannot be held to be gainsaid by the fact 



