0145 



BOX. 



Family: EUPHORBIACEAE [Translator's note: this species is now classified in the 

 family Buxaceae] 



Reproductive system: MONOECY, TETRANDRY. 



There are several known varieties of the common box, Buxus sempervirens, LlNN. 

 When our gardens were planted on a precise plan, the one called dwarf box, Artois box, 

 contributed greatly to their ornamentation. It outlined the contours of parterres, and it 

 could be made to take on all shapes and orientations. In southern provinces the box grows 

 very tall, but around Paris it only reaches about ten or twelve feet. It has lots of twisted 

 branches. The leaves are opposite, ovate, oblong, and sometimes lightly indented. The 

 flowers form little bunches at the axils of the leaves. They are yellowish and have a calyx 

 with four sepals. The male flowers are surrounded at their base by a scale with two lobes; 

 they have four stamens with very short filaments inserted under the rudiment of the 

 ovary. The female flowers have three small scales at their base, an ovary topped by three 

 persistent styles, and three obtuse stigmata. The fruit is a three-pointed capsule with three 

 compartments containing six seeds. 



VARIETIES. 



1 . Dwarf box: very short stem that hardly ever grows higher than two or three 

 feet. 



2. Box, leaves variegated with yellow. 



3. Box, leaves variegated with white. 



FLOWERS: during April. 



RANGE: France and much of Europe. 



NOMENCLATURE. German, der hitchs. English, buxbom. Italian, busso. Russian, 

 samchith. Polish, bukspan. Persian, schimshat. Turkish, tschemtschir . 



