1724 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



able economic importance in the mountains north of Ichang, in Hupeh, where it is a 

 tree of considerable dimensions. 



B. Wallichiana is very rare in cultivation ; but thrives at Kew, where speci- 

 mens, about 6 or 7 feet high, produce flowers and fruit regularly. (A. H.) 



BUXUS SEMPERVIRENS, Common Box 



Buxus sempervirens, Linnjeus, Sp. PL 983 (i7S3); Loudon, Arb. et Frut Brit. iii. 1333 (1838); 



BaiUon, Monog. Buxac. S9 (1859); Miiller, in De Candolle, Frod. xvi. i, p. 19 (1869); 



Willkomm, Forstl. Mora, 802 (1887); Mathieu, Flore Forestiire, 306 (1897). 

 Buxus arborescens, Miller, Did. ed. viii. No. i (1768). 



A shrub or small tree, attaining about 30 ft. in height and 3 ft. in girth. 

 Young branchlets densely pubescent with short white hairs, which are more or 

 less retained in the second and third years. Leaves persistent five or six years, 

 coriaceous, opposite, oval or elliptic, averaging i to i|^ in. long and | in. broad, rounded 

 and usually emarginate at the apex; shining and dark green above; duller and 

 yellowish green below ; secondary nerves pinnate, often forked, conspicuous on the 

 upper surface ; margin entire ; tapering at the base to a very short petiole, which is 

 pubescent like the branchlets, the pubescence extending along the midrib on the 

 upper surface, and on the edges of the base of the blade. 



Flowers small, white ; both sexes sessile ; rudimentary ovary of the staminate 

 flower scarcely half as long as the inner sepals ; styles of the pistillate flower short, 

 about half as long as the ovary. Capsule ovoid, longer than broad, brown when 

 ripe, crowned by short spreading styles; seeds trigonous, smooth, shining, black. 

 The seedling ^ has two oblong obtuse glabrous cotyledons about J in. long, raised 

 above ground on a glabrous caulicle about i^ in. long ; primary leaves opposite, 

 decussate, elliptic, shortly stalked. 



Varieties 



A considerable number of varieties of the common box are in cultivation, 

 most of which have arisen in gardens and nurseries — the variation in the wild state * 

 being slight. 



I. Var. angustifolia, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1333 (1838). 



Buxus angustifolia, Miller, Gard. Diet, ed. viii. No. 2 (1768). 

 Leaves oblong-lanceolate, about i in. long and'^ in. wide. This is said to occur 



lanceolate leaves as much as 3 in. long, and } in. broad ; staminate flowers on long pedicels, with a minute and linear rudimen- 

 tary ovary. This species, which is allied to B. baharica, has remarkably fine foliage and conspicuous flowers ; but has not yet 

 been introduced. It has lately been fully described and figured by Dummer, in Card. Chron. Iii. 423, fig. 182 (1912). 



' Cf. Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 481, fig. 639 (1892). 



2 The typical form of the species was distinguished as var. arborescens, by Linnaeus, Sf. PI. 983 {1753), a name kept up 

 by I^udon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1333 (1838). Var. grandifoUa, MuUer, in De CandoUe, Prod. xvi. \, p. 19 (1869), 

 wild in Spain, Greece, and the Caucasus, is scarcely distinguishable, though occasionally the leaves are longer and more 

 lanceolate than in the type. 



