Buxus l 7^7 



naturalised, if not truly indigenous, in a few localities. It was cultivated 1 in 

 Britain by the Romans ; and as it seeds itself freely in the south of England, it 

 may have spread from abandoned villas. It was well known in Anglo-Saxon times, 

 the earliest mention, I was informed by the late Dr. Skeat, being in the " Corpus 

 Glossary " of Latin and English words, which was written about 750 a.d. In this 

 work box is given as the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Latin word buxus. The 

 word box begins to appear early in place-names, 2 the oldest example known to Dr. 

 Skeat being Box-ora {i.e. box-bank), the old name of Boxford, Berks ; and there must 

 have been box trees here at an early date. In the thirteenth century, numerous 

 names of places occur with box, as La Boxe, Le Boxe, Hundred de Boxe, Boxen, 

 Boxford, Boxhale, Boxhey, Boxore, Boxley, Boxland, Boxstead. These place- 

 names show that box was well known in former times ; but whether it was wild or 

 cultivated, there is no means of determining. 



Professor Babington 3 believed that the following extract from the beginning of 

 Asser's Life of King Alfred showed that it was plentiful in Berkshire 1000 years 

 ago : " Berrocscire ; quae paga taliter vocatur a Berroc sylva, ubi buxus abundan- 

 tissime nascitur." Gough's Camden, 155 (1789), says: "The last remains of 

 Boxgrove 3 in Sulham parish, near Reading, whence the county probably took its 

 name, were grubbed up about forty years ago." 



Gerard, 4 writing in 1597, says : "The box tree groweth upon sundry waste and 

 barren hills in England." Ray 5 in 1696 records it growing at Boxhill near Dorking, 

 at Boxley in Kent, and at Boxewell in the Cotswolds. 



At the present day, box is apparently wild in several places in the south of 

 England, the most famous being Box Hill in Surrey, where many acres on the 

 western slopes are covered with a mixture of yew, box, and other trees. The 

 occurrence of the box-tree here was first recorded by Merrett 6 in 1666. Count 

 Solms-Laubach suggests 7 that the box and yew trees of Box Hill might probably 

 be the remains of a native forest which originally clothed the North Downs. He 

 urges the unlikelihood of such a soil as that of Box Hill being planted at all, and 

 the improbability of any one hitting upon such a combination as yew and box for 

 the purpose. Manning and Bray, History of Surrey, i. 560 (1804), give the follow- 

 ing account : " The Downs, which rise from the opposite bank of the Mole, are 

 finely chequered with Yew and Box trees of great antiquity, to a considerable 

 height. Of the latter of these in particular there was formerly such abundance 

 that that part of the Downs which is contiguous to the stream, and within 



1 Clement Reid, at a meeting of the Linnean Society, London, on 2nd December 1909, said that Box leaves have been 

 found in three different rubbish heaps in the Roman remains at Silchester. The branches may have been used for wreaths. 



2 The names of places with box, given by Spelman, Villare Anglicum (1653) and by Adams, Index Villaris (1680) are 

 Box (Wilts), Boxend (Beds), Boxford (Berks and Suffolk), Boxley (Kent), Boxted (Essex and Suffolk), Boxwell (Gloucester), 

 and Boxworth (Berks and Cambridge). Some of these, as we know from the old spelling, do not indicate the box tree ; thus 

 Boxworth near Cambridge means the " farm of the buck." In some cases these places seem to be connected with the Roman 

 occupation of Britain, as Boxmoor House (Herts), near which a Roman dwelling-house was discovered in 1851 ; but where 

 the places occur on the chalk downs, the presumption is that the tree is indigenous. 



3 Phytologist, iv. 873 (1853). Cf. Stevenson, Asser's Life of King Alfred, pp. 1, 156, 157 (1904). who states that 

 Berroc Wood was identified with Boxgrove by Francis Wise in 1738. 4 Herball, 1225 (1597). 



6 Syn. Meth. ii. 310 (1696). Box does not appear to be growing wild at the present time near Boxley in Kent. 

 Pinax. Rerum Nat. Brii. 18 (1666). 



7 Cf. article by G. R. M. Murray, in fount. Bot. xxxix. 27 (1901). 



