Buxus Sempervirens

Buxus sempervirens (Common Box or European Box; also as Boxwood) is a flowering plant in the genus Buxus, native to western and southern Europe, northwest Africa, and southwest Asia, from southern England south to northern Morocco, and east through the northern Mediterranean region to Turkey.Rushforth, K. (1999). Trees of Britain and Europe. Collins ISBN 0-00-220013-9.Flora Europaea: Buxus sempervirensBritish Trees: Buxus sempervirens Buxus colchica of western Caucasus and B. hyrcana of northern Iran and eastern Caucasus are commonly treated as synonyms of B. sempervirens.GRIN Taxonomy for Plants – Buxus sempervirensMed-Checklist: Buxus colchica
It is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing to 1–9 m tall, with a trunk up to 20 cm diameter this rather large for a small evergreen bush. (exceptionally to 10 m tall and 45 cm diameterTree Register of the British Isles). The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, green to yellow-green, oval, 15–30 mm long and 5–13 mm broad. The hermaphrodite flowers are inconspicuous, greenish-yellow, with no petals and are insect pollinated; the fruit is a three-lobed capsule containing 3-6 seeds.
The species typically grows on soils derived from chalk, limestone, usually as an understorey in forests of larger trees, most commonly associated with Fagus sylvatica forests, but also sometimes in open dry montane scrub, particularly in the Mediterranean region. Box Hill, Surrey is named after its notable box population, which comprises the largest area of native box woodland in England.Mitchell, A. F. (1974). A Field Guide to the Trees of Britain and Northern Europe. Collins ISBN 0-00-212035-6Bean, W. J. (1976). Trees and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles 8th ed., vol. 1. John Murray ISBN 0-7195-1790-7.
==Cultivation and uses==
In Britain, three burials of the Roman era featured coffins lined with sprays of the evergreen box, a practice unattested elsewhere in Europe.H. Goodwin, History of the British Flora (1956) noted in Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and Their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Buxus".
Box remains a very popular ornamental plant in gardens, being particularly valued for topiary and hedges because of its tolerance of close shearing, small leaves, and scented foliage. The scent is not to everyone's liking: the herbalist John Gerard found it "evill and lothsome" and at Hampton Court Palace Queen Anne had box hedging grubbed up because the odor was offensive, Daniel Defoe tells.Defoe, A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724), noted in Todd Longstaffe-Gowan and Vivian Russell, The Gardens and Parks at Hampton Court Palace (2005:87); the authors suggest that simplification of the fussy Dutch designs to suit an English taste for plain lawn and gravel was actually the major motive (pp 84ff).
Several cultivars have been selected, including 'Argenteo-variegata' and 'Marginata' with variegated foliage; such "gilded box" received a first notice in John Parkinson's Paradisi in Sole Paradisus Terrestris (1629).Parkinson asserts in his Theatrum Botanicum (1640) that the "gilded" box "hath not been mentioned by any Writer before me": quoted in Alice M. Coats, Garden Shrubs and Their Histories (1964) 1992, s.v. "Buxus". 'Vardar Valley', a slow-growing particularly hardy semi-dwarf cultivar,Huxley, A., ed. (1992). New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. Macmillan ISBN 0-333-47494-5.Plants for a Future: Buxus sempervirens was selected in 1935 by the American botanist Edward Anderson in the upper Vardar valley and sent to the Arnold Arboretum for evaluation.John L. Creech, note in Coats 1992.
Slow growth of box renders the wood ("boxwood") very hard (possibly the hardest in Europe) and heavy, and free of grain produced by growth rings, making it ideal for cabinet-making, the crafting of clarinets, engraving, marquetry, woodturning, tool handles, mallet heads and as a substitute for ivory. The noted English engraver Thomas Bewick pioneered the use of boxwood blocks for engraving.Pg.171, Lawrence, E., ed. (1985) The Illustrated Book of Trees & Shrubs. Gallery Books ISBN 0-8317-8820-8.University of Newcastle: Thomas Bewick's use of boxwood
The leaves were formerly used in place of quinine, and as a fever reducer.
The species is locally naturalised in parts of North America.
==Gallery==
Image:Buxus sempervirens0.jpg|Plant growing in dry Mediterranean scrub
Image:Buxus sempervirens foliage 1.jpg|Buxus sempervirens foliage
Image:Buxus vdg.jpg|Buxus sempervirens foliage
Image:Softwood stemcuttings.jpg|Buxus sempervirens cuttings in a greenhouse
Image:Common Boxwood Buxus sempervirens 'Vardar Valley' Plant 2000px.JPG|Plant of the cultivar 'Vardar Valley'
Image:Common Boxwood Buxus sempervirens 'Vardar Valley' Leaves 2000px.JPG|'Vardar Valley' foliage
Image:Common Boxwood Buxus sempervirens 'Vardar Valley' Leaves Closeup 3008px.JPG|'Vardar Valley' leaves closeup
Image:JBotanicoCuritiba.JPG|French gardens made of Buxus sempervirens, Botanical Garden of Curitiba, Southern Brazil
==References==
Category:Boxwood