Buxus

Buxus is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box or boxwood. The boxes are native to western and southern Europe, southwest, southern and eastern Asia, Africa, Madagascar, northernmost South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean, with the majority of species being tropical or subtropical; only the European and some Asian species are frost-tolerant. Centres of diversity occur in Cuba (about 30 species), China (17 species) and Madagascar (9 species). They are slow-growing evergreen shrubs and small trees, growing to 2–12 m (rarely 15 m) tall. The leaves are opposite, rounded to lanceolate, and leathery; they are small in most species, typically 1.5–5 cm long and 0.3–2.5 cm broad, but up to 11 cm long and 5 cm broad in B. macrocarpa. The flowers are small and yellow-green, monoecious with both sexes present on a plant. The fruit is a small capsule 0.5–1.5 cm long (to 3 cm in B. macrocarpa), containing several small seeds. The genus splits into three genetically distinct sections, each section in a different region, with the Eurasian species in one section, the African (except northwest Africa) and Madagascan species in the second, and the American species in the third. The African and American sections are genetically closer to each other than to the Eurasian section. Buxus austro-yunnanensis (Yunnan box; southwest China) Buxus balearica (Balearic box; Balearic Islands, southern Spain, northwest Africa) Buxus bodinieri (China) Buxus cephalantha (China) Buxus cochinchinensis (Malaysia, Vietnam) Buxus colchica (Georgian box; western Caucasus; considered also a syn. of B. sempervirens) Buxus hainanensis (Hainan box; China: Hainan) Buxus harlandii (Harland's box; southern China, Vietnam) Buxus hebecarpa (China) Buxus henryi (Henry's box; China) Buxus hyrcana (Caspian box; Alborz, eastern Caucasus; considered also a syn. of B.