About

Buxus sempervirens, the common box, European box, or boxwood, is a species of 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. Buxus colchica of western Caucasus and B. hyrcana of northern Iran and eastern Caucasus are commonly treated as synonyms of B. sempervirens.

How to grow it

In Britain, four Roman burials featured coffins containing sprays of the evergreen box, a practice unattested elsewhere in Europe. Box leaves have also been found from several towns, villas and farmsteads in Roman Britain, indicating ornamental planting.

Box remains a very popular ornamental plant in gardens, being particularly valued for topiary and hedges because of its small leaves, evergreen nature, tolerance of close shearing, and scented foliage. The scent is not to everyone's liking: the herbalist John Gerard found it "evil and lothsome" and Daniel Defoe recounts that at Hampton Court Palace Queen Anne had the box hedging removed because she found its odour offensive.

Where it grows

The species typically grows on soils derived from chalk, limestone, usually as an understorey in forests of larger trees, most commonly associated with European beech (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.

Uses

The boxwood is identified with the Hebrew word תְאַשּׁוּר tə’aššûr oft-mentioned in the Book of Isaiah. Catholic households in climates where palms are scarce or nonexistent often use boxwood twigs instead to adorn their crosses on Palm Sunday.

Other Buxus plants

Littleleaf boxwood · Chinese Boxwood · Boxwood