Buxus sempervirens L.
Box, Caucasian boxwood, Common box, Common box (EN)
Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.
Summary
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.
Text from Wikipedia, “Buxus sempervirens”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.
About the genus · Buxus
Buxus is a genus of about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. Common names include box and boxwood.
Text from Wikipedia, “Buxus”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.
At a glance
Also known as Buxus angustifolia Mill.; Buxus arborescens (L.) Mill.; Buxus arborescens var. angustifolia (Mill.) Weston; Buxus arborescens var. argenteovariegata Weston; Buxus arborescens var. aureolimbo Weston and 45 more.
Cultivation
Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Buxus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.
Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and April to June in the northern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.
The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (728 mm of 979 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and April to June. Mean temperature moves 16.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and October to December.
Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain Habitat rain 979 mm a year, wettest October at 106 mm, driest July at 53 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
979 mm a year at the habitat, 728 mm of it September to January and April to June. Wettest month October at 106 mm, driest July at 53 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 681 mm to 1470 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).
CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 42 mol/m²/day.
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 42 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 4, the highest 90th-percentile month 46).
CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.
Warmth and air Cold floor -8.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
This species’ habitat figures, with their source.
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -8.2 °C, the absolute minimum -19.3 °C, about 82 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells -4.8 °C to 2.4 °C), warmest day 24.3 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -8.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).
NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 63% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.
The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.
Climate across the habitat
Figures by month
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 6 / 3–10 | 7 / 4–11 | 11 / 8–14 | 13 / 10–17 | 18 / 14–21 | 21 / 18–25 | 24 / 20–29 | 24 / 20–28 | 20 / 17–24 | 16 / 13–19 | 10 / 7–13 | 7 / 4–10 |
| Night °C | -1 / -5–2 | -0 / -5–3 | 2 / -2–5 | 4 / 0–7 | 8 / 5–11 | 11 / 8–15 | 14 / 11–17 | 14 / 11–17 | 11 / 8–14 | 8 / 5–11 | 3 / -1–6 | 1 / -4–3 |
| Rain mm | 80 / 47–128 | 66 / 38–104 | 66 / 42–111 | 89 / 54–134 | 92 / 60–140 | 71 / 43–117 | 53 / 22–111 | 66 / 39–117 | 95 / 59–134 | 106 / 74–171 | 97 / 61–162 | 98 / 57–154 |
| DLI | 11 / 5–14 | 17 / 10–20 | 26 / 17–29 | 33 / 27–36 | 38 / 32–41 | 42 / 34–45 | 42 / 33–46 | 37 / 28–40 | 28 / 20–31 | 18 / 12–21 | 12 / 7–15 | 9 / 4–12 |
| RH % | 62 / 58–68 | 61 / 57–65 | 59 / 56–63 | 59 / 56–62 | 59 / 56–62 | 58 / 54–62 | 57 / 52–62 | 58 / 53–62 | 60 / 56–63 | 62 / 60–66 | 63 / 59–68 | 63 / 58–69 |
Each figure is the median across the 530 grid cells holding the 718 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 922:3664 (43.875, 3.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -19.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -8.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.5 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 530 distinct grid cells holding the 718 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 922:3664 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 44.00_3.125, lapse-corrected +80 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 744 m (cell mean).
Natural habitat
Photographs
Photographs: (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Dmitriy Bochkov, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Duarte Frade, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0.
Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.
Papers naming this species
Works whose title or abstract names Buxus sempervirens, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.
Related
Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.
Allium sphaerocephalon Round-Headed Leek
Paeonia officinalis Common Peony
Atocion armeria Lobel's catchfly
Allium moly Lily Leek
Daphne laureola Daphne Spurge-Laurel
Laburnum anagyroides Common LaburnumOther Buxus 1 in the reference
History & registers
Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)wcvp.distribution answeredgbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search APIclimate answeredwikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedinat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedinat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)gbif.media answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedopenalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skippedEvery upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 13 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.








