Box

PART  ONE - BOX FACTS

Name

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Habitat

The natural habitat of the Box is on chalk and limestone soils in western and southern Europe, North-Africa, Iran, the Western Himalayas and Japan. It is also found in the USA along the Atlantic coast.
Box is a rather slow growing tree and although it is very tolerant to shade, other faster growing limestone-loving trees tend to overtake it with an abundance of growth and form a canopy above it, so discouraging its growth. This means that Box tends to be a climax tree only on steep slopes or in other conditions where its competitors have difficulty establishing themselves. For example: in areas where rabbits or other plant-eating mammals are abundant and destroy other seedlings or in sandy coastal situations.. Once the Box has colonised an area, it is difficult for other seedlings to establish themselves in the heavy shade of its dense evergreen foliage.
The Box is a native of limestone and chalk areas in southern Britain and we know from archeological evidence that it has grown in Britain at least since Neolithic times. Most of our Box trees were cut down in the past for their valuable timber, but it can still be found in woods in Gloucester, Kent, Surrey and Buckinghamshire.
Box is a very popular hedging plant and can be seen frequently in domestic gardens, large formal gardens, graveyards and topiaries.

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Notes for Observation

General Appearance:
A very slow growing evergreen tree with an abundance of branches, which are densely set with small glossy leaves. If allowed to grow into a tree, it has often one or more bare trunks of a rather wavy, almost dancing appearance and is seldom straight. The crown is densely leaved with some long drooping branches and may have a pointed shape.
The tree can grow up to 10 metres high with a girth of 80 cm, but in this country, the more usual size is up to 4.5 metres with a trunk diameter of up to 15 cm.

Bark:
The bark is pale-brown and with age becomes a rugged surface with a greyish to green-greyish hue. The bark on the branches is more yellowish, thin and flaking. Note also that the young twigs are squarish, rather than round. 

Flowers:
The flowers are so tiny that they are easily missed. Look for them in April at the point where the leaves join the stem. You'll need a magnifying glass to see properly how they are shaped. You will find crowded little clusters of flowers without petals, consisting usually of a larger female flower surrounded by 6 or 6 male flowers. The male flowers have a rudimentary ovary and 4 stamens with yellow heads. The female flower is larger and has a 3-celled ovary, which gives rise to 3 small curved green horns, which are the styles. The flowers contain honey and are fertilised by insects. They open April/May.

Fruit:
The fruit is a green ovoid berry, 6 mm in diameter, which will contain up to 6 black glossy seeds (1-2 in each compartment). In Britain the seeds will only mature in a good summer, when the fruit ripes in September. The capsules become dry and the inner layer of the pericarp separates from the outer, folding into a U-shape. The hard endocarp is compressed. The seeds are released by this whole mechanism with a small explosive sounds and projected up to 3 metres away.

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Cultivation

The best method is to take 4 inch stem-tips or heel cuttings in early summer. Remove the leaves from the lower half. If desired, the bottom can be dipped in a rooting hormone preparation (available in all garden centres) to help speed up the formation of a viable root system.
Plant the cuttings in a pot filled with good seed and cutting compost. Cover the pots with a plastic bag (resting on 3 or 4 small sticks), or put in a cold frame. The important thing is not to let the compost dry out. The cuttings like bright light, but need to be kept away from direct sunlight, so it is a good practice to shade the cold frame.
Those cutting which have taken root can be planted in a nursery bed next spring, where they are kept free of weeds and watered in dry weather. They can be moved to their permanent positions after one or two seasons growth in the nursery bed.
Box is a very slow growing plant and it is said to be able to withstand more clipping than any other. These qualities, together with the fact that the branches are closely covered with leaves, has made Box such a popular choice for a hedge. It is easy to 'control' (because it does not grow like a triffid!), stays green all the year round and makes a dense  good-looking hedge.
It can withstand quite dense shade as well, which makes it also a good choice for use in shrubberies.
Last, but not least, we should endeavour to plant Box as trees in their own right. This is not only good for the tree itself, but will also benefit generations of people to come, as there may be less and less natural Box woods in the future where people are able to make friends with this tree.
It will not become a very tall tree in this country, so it is worthy of consideration if one is looking for an evergreen tree to plant in the garden.
There are many cultivated varieties available with different colour or variegated leaves, as well as dwarf forms, which make excellent tub plants on a patio or balcony or which can be used to make low hedges around flower beds or herb beds in a formal garden. 

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Traditional Uses of the Wood

Boxwood is extremely valuable. It is the hardest wood of any European tree. As far as I know only Ebony is harder. Box is twice as hard as Oak and said to be as durable as brass. Moreover, it has a very fine, close uniform grain (as fine as Ebony) and does not warp. Its density makes it also a very heavy wood and when it is green: it will sink in water.
The colour of the wood is pale yellow and may be familiar to those of us who have seen old-fashioned wooden rulers or the carpenters measuring rules, which were used before the introduction of plastic rulers and metal tape measures.
Box can be cut into the finest patterns without breaking.
Obviously, a wood with all these qualities was very much sought after and must have been invaluable before metals were easily available. It is not surprising therefore that it has many traditional uses.
First of all it was used for measuring devices, mathematical; and navigational instrument and good quality musical instruments, such as flutes and clarinets.
Box has been used as an inlay for wood carving, cabinet making and as a substitute for ivory. It was of course the wood of choice to make printing blocks and engraving plates. It allowed the wood-engraver very fine detail in making pictures. It was used for pestle and mortars, pill rounders, small pulley blocks, moving parts in the textile industry and handles for tools which get a lot of abuse such as chisels, wedges and so on.
A few examples of the long list of other uses are: small carvings, chess pieces, toilet and snuff boxes, forks and spoons, children's tops, rosaries and other small objects.
The root is even harder and contains more beautiful patterns, which made it a popular choice for dagger handles, fancy boxes and small turned articles.

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Food Uses

All parts of the tree are poisonous, especially the leaves and the seeds. Animals have died from eating the leaves. 

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Box Medicine

Parts used:
The bark of the roots, the flowering stems and the leaves have frequently been used, but the wood, especially of the roots, seems to have been preferred by many ancient healers. One wonders whether this preference had anything to do with the toxicity of the plant. The literature on the subjevt is rather vague and fragmented, but indicates enough promise to warrant serious modern research. Information about the Yew was equally vague and promising and research has now yielded an important anti-tumour drug from its bark.

Constituents:
Mrs. Grieve provides, as so often, the most extensive information:
"The leaves have been found to contain besides a small amount of tannin and unimportant constituents, a butyraceous volatile oil and three alkaloids: (I) Buxine, the important constituent, chiefly responsible for the bitter taste and now regarded as identical with the Berberine of Nectander bark, (II) Parabuxine, (III) Parabuxonidine, which turns tumeric paper deep red. The bark contains chlorophyll, wax, resin, argotized tallow, gum, lignin, sulphates of potassium and lime, carbonates of lime and magnesia, phosphates of lime, iron and silica."
Other sources (e.g. Schauenberg and Paris) report that the whole plant contains the steroid alkaloid buxine, as well as four secondary alkaloids and an essential oil.

Actions:
Febrifuge (reduces fevers) and sudorific (induces sweating).
Anti-periodic: it counteracts periodic or intermittent diseases, such as malaria.
Laxative and purgative, also emetic (induces vomiting) in careless dosage.
Bitter tonic and cholagogue: it stimulates gastric secretions and the flow of bile from the liver.
Vermifuge: it helps to kill and expel intestinal worms.
Depurative: it helps to cleanse and purify the system, particularly the blood.
Alterative: In the right dosage it helps to produce gradual beneficial changes in the body.

CAUTION:
Box is unsuitable for self-medication. All parts of the plant are poisonous and extremely careful dosage is essential. Symptoms of Box poisoning are vomiting, abdominal pain and bloody diarrhoea.

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Traditional Medicinal Usage

General Dosage:
General dosage, based on Mrs. Grieve's recommendations, are as follows:
As purgative: dose of the powdered leaves, 3.5 grams.
As vermifuge: 0.6 - 1.2 grams.
As sudorific: 30 - 55 grams of the grated wood decocted in a pint of water, taken in wine glass full doses during the day.

Fevers:
A fever is not a disease, but a defense mechanism of the body in which the temperature is increased and the metabolism speeded up in an attempt to cleanse the body of undesirable substances. Sweating is one of its side effects, which apart from cooling the skin, is an extra channel to excrete waste products.
There are many diseases that have fevers as one of its most prominent symptoms and in many of these the Box was used as a medicine. Like many other herbs, it is able to ease the severity of the fever without sabotaging the body's attempt to cleanse itself, because this medicine itself also contributes a cleansing action.
Box was also recommended for patients who did not respond well to quinine (the powdered bark of a Peruvian tree Cinchona succirubra, which since has been known as "Peruvian Bark"). Quinine became famous for the treatment of malaria, a disease with intermittent fevers.
Please see Making Tree Medicine for details on how to make a tincture.
Alternatively, a decoction can be made by boiling 30 -55 grams of grated root or wood in a litre of water in a pan with a tight fitting lid. Simmer for half an hour and drink in doses of a wineglass full during the day.

Smallpox:
Smallpox was a dangerous and disfiguring virus-born disease, which during the Crusades was introduced into Europe and used to rage in destructive epidemics until vaccination eradicated it as a major killer. It is one of the great success stories of modern medicine.
Pox is the plural of 'pock', the old English term for a pustule. Smallpox was so called to differentiate it from syphilis, 'the great pox'.
Box medicine was a used as an important ally in the management of this life threatening illness.
The famous St. Hildegard of Bingen, a mystic nun, poet and healer of great renown, is known to have used Box as a remedy for smallpox.
Luckily we are no longer familiar with this terrible disease and a description of smallpox may be interesting, both from a historical point of view, as well as to obtain a small insight into the type of illness which was treated with Box.
Smallpox is an highly infectious disease, characterised by a severe febrile illness in two phases. After the first attack of fever and general malaise, the fever declines and a rash appears which changes in a few days to raised pustules or 'pox' filled with a clear liquid. The pox grow larger, the skin around them is inflamed and the fluid changes to pus. The mucous membranes in mouth and throat are also affected which is dangerous because swellings in this area can obstruct the air passage.
Next the fever increases again in severity (the so called 'suppurative' or secondary fever) and the patient experiences extreme discomfort from the irritation caused by the pox. After about 12 days, the pustules either break or dry up and a black crust forms. The temperature usually drops at this stage, but their is great itching of the skin where the scabs have formed. Smallpox used to be a major killer all through the known world and skillful nursing and supportive remedies could make all the difference between life and death.

Influenza, Sluggishness of the liver, etc. :
The depurative, sudorific, bitter tonic and cholagogue actions of Box are the reason that it was often taken at the onset of all types of influenza, as well as for so called 'liverishness' and other odd complaints, such as disorders of the urinary tract, for which there was no clear explanation.

Skin diseases:
Box was taken for the same reason at the onset of skin diseases. Mrs. Grieve reports that the wood, in its native countries, was given as an alterative for secondary syphilis. It was used as a substitute for Guaiacum (a resin obtained from a tropical tree) in the treatment of venereal disease, when "sudorifics were considered to be the correct specifics".
The tincture, made from the wood, also had the reputation of curing leprosy.

Rheumatism and gout:
On the continent of Europe, Box was also used for rheumatic diseases and gout for its alterative and depurative properties.

To promote hair-growth and loose dandruff:
In many European countries, including Britain, recipes have been passed down generations, recommending various concoctions, usually of fresh Box leaves, to prevent untimely hair loss and to get rid of Dandruff.
Palaiseul gives a French concoction: Macerate 50 grams of finely chopped fresh leaves in half a litre of alcohol (45%), marc-brandy or rum, for ten to fifteen days; filter, if wished, perfume with a little natural essence (lavender, rosemary)." Rub the scalp daily with this mixture. Good results for less money (since you don't have to buy the alcohol), are also claimed for a daily treatment with the decoction of a couple of ounces of fresh leaves.
Mrs. Grieve writes: "Dried and powdered, the leaves are still given to horses for the purpose of improving their coats. The powder is regarded by carters as highly poisonous, to be given with great care. In Devonshire, farriers still employ the old-fashioned remedy of powdered Box-leaves for bot-worm in horses."

Intestinal worms:
The dried powdered leaves were given in a dose of 0.6 -1.2 grams to expel intestinal worms. This must be taken, with water, on an empty stomach, first thing in the morning. The treatment should be repeated after a fortnight, as re-infestation from eggs often takes place within this time.

Epilepsy, piles and toothache:
"A volatile oil, distilled from the wood has been prescribed in cases of epilepsy. The oil has been employed for piles and also for toothache." (Mrs. Grieve)

Mad dog bites:
"In former days, Box was the active ingredient in a once-famous remedy for the bite of a mad dog." (Mrs. Grieve)

Homeopathy:
A tincture, prepared from the fresh leaves, is used in homeopathy for fever, rheumatism, urinary tract infection and diarrhoea.

Spiritual:
The spirit of Box is a great ally, when we feel the pain of the fact that nothing is durable, that everything always changes and is forever in a state of fluidity. It will help us to sense the consoling presence of dimensions beyond our own immediate reality.

Other Uses

• "The leaves and sawdust boiled in lye were used to dye hair an auburn colour." "Box leaves are also sometimes used as an adulteration of Senna, but is easily detected by their shape and thickness."

• "Various extracts and perfumes were formerly made from the leaves and the bark."

• "The branches and leaves of Box have been recommended as by far the best manure for the vine, as it is said no plant by its decomposition affords a greater quantity of vegetable manure." (Mrs. Grieve)

• Small birds love the Box for building nests in the shelter of its protective branches.

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Other Species

The Box belongs to a family of evergreen trees and shrubs, which are mostly found in the tropics. The Buxaceae family is closely related to the Euphorbiaceae (Spurge) family. Many varieties of the Box have been cultivated for ornamental purposes and these will have similar medicinal properties.

• B. sempervirens, var. 'Suffruticosa' - a dwarf form of Box, which can be used for path and bed edging of only a few inches high.

• B. sempervirens, var. 'Elegantissima' - has leaves striped with silver.

• B. sempervirens, var. 'Marginata' - has yellow-edged leaves

• B. sempervirens, var. 'Aureovariegata' - has variegated leaves with yellow blotches.

There are two other Boxes, which are occasionally seen:

• B. japonica - A hardier species than B. sempervirens, but otherwise very similar. It has also a golden leaved variety ('Aurea').

• B. balearica - A native to some of the Mediterranian islands, such as Minorca and Sardinia, as well as Spain. It has much larger leaves, up to 5 cm long, and a paler, pinkish bark. It is also a much taller tree than the Box and can grow in its native regions up to 18 - 24 metres high. In Britain it will only grow successfully on sheltered, favourable sites and it is usually only seen here in tree collections, gardens and on estates.

The American Boxwood (Cornus florida) is a deciduous tree native to Eastern and Central USA. It is also known as Flowering Cornel, or Flowering Dogwood. It has a lot in common with the Box, because it is also a relatively slow grower, has a compact hard wood and has also been used as a Quinine substitute. It belongs, however to the Dogwood family (Cornaceae). The bark is used medicinally and it has tonic, astringent and slightly stimulant qualities.

PART  TWO- BOX, A TREE WITH TIMELESS QUALITIES

Box is one of the few native British evergreens

Most of us know the Box as an evergreen with small glossy leaves, forming clipped dense hedges in countless British formal and front gardens, where the surreal cult of topiary is practiced. Here we find Box trees in a great variety of carefully sculpted shapes. These trees have been patiently disguised, after long years of nifty clipping, as peacocks, locomotives or whatever other fanciful image the gardener has been able to impose.
Inspite of its exotic looking glossy leaves, the Box is one of the few evergreen natives of Britain, but nor many of us are lucky enough to have seen Box trees grow wild in a forest or a wood. This is partly because they occur naturally only in chalk and limestone areas (such as Gloucester and south England), but also because their wood is one of the most commercially valuable timbers in Europe.
The diarist and arboculturist John Evelyn wrote several centuries ago: "He that in winter should behold some of our higher hills in Surrey clad with whole woods of these trees, for divers miles in circuit ...... might, without the least violence to his imagination, fancy himself transported into some new or enchanted country......". 

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An ancient tree, prized for its wood and medicine

And although even today, there are still some Box trees left on the famous Boxhill near Dorking in Surrey, most of these woods were long since cut up into rulers and other measuring devices to help us accurately measure the world around us and transform it to our own design. They were sawn up into printing blocks and engraving plates, which enabled us to share our knowledge with others and to print pictures with extremely fine detail, that would only be rivaled by the invention of photography and modern printing techniques.
Box produces its fine heavy wood through a very slow growth rate and so it is, alas, an unattractive proposition to grow it as a commercial forest tree. It will not give financial returns within any individual's life time, only the satisfaction that we leave something of value behind for those who come after us. That was not tangible or attractive enough for most people. Besides, it was cheaper to import Boxwood from abroad. In our own time nobody is very interested in planting Box as a timber tree either. We have so many alternative materials to provide the services that the Box once gave us and we still have such confidence in our ability to make the abundance, we enjoy today, last. And we are far too busy to give much thought to our responsibilities to our descendants.
Yet before this last century of incredible expansion of technology and science, the Box was cultivated for its wood and medicine as long as human memory goes back.
It is mentioned in the Bile. When God speaks to the people of Israel, promising them to renew the land: "I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.
I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together." (Isaiah 41: 18-19)

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An excellent substitute for quinine

All parts of the Box tree are poisonous, particularly their leaves and seeds. Animals have died from time to time eating the leaves. Yet like so many other poisonous plants, such as Foxglove, Belladonna, White Bryony, Thornapple, Yew and the Opium Poppy, it has valuable medicinal qualities. One of the medicinally active chemicals present in all parts of the Box is the steroid alkaloid 'buxine'. It is identical to the much more well known 'berberine', present in Berberis vulgaris (Common Barberry), which is also poisonous taken in quantity. Berberine has anti-bacterial, anti-malarial and even some anti-viral action. It is also sedative and tends to lower blood pressure.
Box was used for a wide variety of complaints from rheumatism to dandruff, but it has probably gained most renown for its efficiency in easing illnesses with prominent fevers, of which there were many in the past. It is an excellent substitute for quinine, a drug made from a South American bark and famous for its use in malaria, which used to be much prescribed by physicians in febrile diseases. Quinine was also a medicine that should be used with care. In its native countries, Box was especially recommended for patients who do not respond well to quinine.

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The 'wonder' drug

There is a curious phenomena in the psychology of healing, that makes people who have difficulty moving about their house, go through the immense trouble and expense of traveling hundreds of miles to find healing at shrines such as the one in Lourdes. Yet the many wonderful places nearer home, where communication with the divine forces is so greatly facilitated, for example, in the woods, by the enchanting streams, in the flowering meadows and so on, are seldom visited. This is so in spite of the fact that the people of Lourdes enjoy no better health than those anywhere else.
Similarly, people have the greatest awe and respect for exotic and mysterious or expensive medicines, whereas time-honoured, known remedies, which are available cheaply from common places such as the hedgerows or our gardens, are looked down upon. Too often they are simply dismissed as superstitious and quaint folk medicine.
Palaisel relates an instructive story: "In Germany in the eighteenth century there was a charlatan (in the original sense of the world, namely a man who -with a good line in patter - pulled teeth and sold drugs in public places) who sold a particular 'wonder drug' for the treatment of fevers. Emperor Joseph II bought his secret from him for 1500 florins and made it public knowledge, so that everyone would benefit: it was alcoholic tincture of box. The writer who recorded this story adds: 'Whereupon, thus being stripped of its prestige, this medicine was consigned to oblivion'."
Fifteen hundred florins was a considerable sum of money in those days. It was a fortune, turning our traveling healer instantly into a rich man. It seems unlikely that the emperor was in the habit of giving away such huge sums of money unless he felt it was well spent. It is also unlikely that the ruler of a great empire would make such a public gesture, if he had any doubts about the project, knowing that his name would, to some extent, be associated with the revelation of this wonder drug. This means that the emperor must have had considerable proof of the usefulness of the remedy.

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A tree that reaches beyond the dimensions known to mortal humans

Box is an ancient tree on the evolutionary scale. It has been growing on the Earth for a long, long time, but it also has other time-less characteristics. It's leisurely slow growth, the extra-ordinary durability of its timber, its ability to stay green throughout the dead heart of winter, all seemed to indicate to our ancestors, that here was a tree, who was familiar with different dimensions, beyond those known to humans. The tree seemed almost impervious to injury. No matter how much it was pruned and clipped, it would continue to flourish and respond with an ever denser growth. Everyone knew that Box can be poisonous, yet it was undeniable a great medicine too.
All these factors added up to an appreciation of the spirit of the tree, which was thought to be familiar not only with the secrets of a powerful life force, but also with the mysterious world beyond it.
The peculiar odour which Box can exude, especially in damp, warm weather, also helped to give it, together with its sedative and narcotic properties, a reputation of 'other-worldly-ness', being able to reach beyond time. Some said it was highly dangerous to the brain to sleep beneath this tree.
"The poet Wordsworth tells us that at country funerals it was usual to have a basin filled with sprays of Box standing at the door, and every friend who came to the funeral took a spray, which he carried to the churchyard and laid on the new grave" C.E. Smith, "Trees shown to the children").
Where it grows, the Box seems to have much of its symbolism in common with that most famous of graveyard trees, the Yew. Like the Yew, it was planted on graveyards. This symbolism is explored in greater detail in the Yew portrait.
Green Box twigs were also used (and still continue to be used in some Church parishes) as decorations on Palm Sunday. In Christ's triumphant entry into Jerusalem, the palm (apart from providing shade) symbolised victory over death, because of its evergreen foliage. In the old Nature religions the Green Man, who is resurrected every spring preceded the great Christian teaching that our saviour is not limited by death, but will be resurrected. Similarly to Jesus, the Green Man was seen as a saviour and the son of the Great Goddess, who was 'sacrificed' or 'gave himself' to us at harvest time, so that all of the earth's creatures can live.

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Evergreen twigs give us hope and consolation

The Box, the Yew and the Holly provide this 'evergreen' symbolism in the more temperate climates. When I was a child in the Netherlands, we used to have yearly processions through the town in spring time , roundabout Easter. All the children carried a bird baked out of bread, set on a stick and decorated with eggs and Box twigs. The best one had a branch tied in a circle for the bird to sit on, like a sort of nest. These processions, with lots of music and gaiety, were a remnant of the old Pagan spring celebration.
The bird was the Phoenix, the fire bird of transformation, rising again from the ashes and death of another winter. The Green Man of the grain, who died last year at harvest, and who was ground into flour and baked into our daily sustenance, was here in the form of our bread birds, celebrating the beginning of yet another cycle in Nature with eggs and evergreen.
Although we know that winter, death and cycles are necessary to provide the riches of consciousness we enjoy and the huge variety of life forms around us, it was always a tremendous relief when the spring returned and life resurrects itself and starts blossoming again.
Many of us are less sensitive to this phenomena now, because we have artificial light, central heating and much indoor entertainment.
Imagine how it must have been for our ancient Grandparents. They knew cerebrally that the spring would return, because it had always been so. However, the winter is just long and dark enough for the doubt to creep in. What if ........ something had gone wrong .......this year was somehow different ...... can one really be so sure that spring will always come back?
It's a bit like when our lover has to travel abroad for months at the time. We have the rational assurance that our beloved will come back, but when the emotions are not fed by regular warm and uplifting messages, we feel insecure and scared. Evergreen trees, like the Box, have a spiritual quality which acts like the love letters we hope to receive, messages from an other land, telling us that life is still there, even if we miss its close presence.
And when the tell-tale sign of spring arrive: the buds, the eggs, the blossoms, the longer light, the rays of the Sun warmer again, we can feel such a lovely, liberating sense of relief, that we need to express it! We feel like celebrating, just as we would when our love finally returns. Life is once more full of promising and delights.
The spirit of Box, apparently able to reach beyond the dimensions known to us mortal human beings, was seen as a friend and ally, a consolation that there is an evergreen side to the cycles of life and death.

Box tree, we honour thee!

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