Narrative

Japanese boxwood (Buxus microphylla) is native to Japan, Korea, and China. This is a compact shrub usually less than 3 feet high. The leaves are small, normally less than 1 inch in length. There are numerous hybrids for this very popular garden plant. (This plant does not appear in Kartesz!)

This lifeform is frequentlhy domesticated.

This lifeform is found in the Orient (China, Japan, Korea.)

Boxwood genus (Buxus) contains about 70 species of usually evergreen shrubs or small trees. The genus can be found in Eurasia, widely in central and southern Africa, and widely and commonly in the northern tropics of the New World including Central America and the Caribbean. . The leathery toothless leaves are without petioles or else with very short petioles. Kartesz shows 4 species as established in his greater North America which includes Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

Boxwood family (Buxaceae) is a tropical family found mainly in the Old World. This family contains evergreen herbs, shrubs, and trees. This is a small family with only about 60 species spread among five different genera. There are six species placed in two genera (Buxus and Pachysandra) that are established in greater North America.

Sapindales Order is a diverse group of mostly trees and shrubs.

Dicots (Dicotyledoneae Class) are the predominant group of vascular plants on earth. With the exception of the grasses (Monocots) and the Conifers (Gymnosperms), most of the larger plants that one encounters are Dicots. Dicots are characterized by having a seed with two outer shell coverings.

Some of the more primitive Dicots are the typical hardwood trees (oaks, birches, hickories, etc). The more advanced Dicots include many of the Composite (Aster) Family flowers like the Dandelion, Aster, Thistles, and Sunflowers. Although many Monocots reach a very high degree of specialization, most botanists feel that the Dicots represent the most advanced group of plants.

Seed plants (Phylum Embryophyta) are generally grouped into one large phylum containing three major classes: the Gymnosperms, the Monocots, and the Dicots. (Some scientists separate the Gymnosperms into a separate phylum and refer to the remaining plants as flowering plants or Angiospermae.)

For North American counts of the number of species in each genus and family, the primary reference has been John T. Kartesz, author of A Synonymized Checklist of the Vascular Flora of the United States, Canada, and Greenland (1994). The geographical scope of his lists include, as part of greater North America, Hawaii, Alaska, Greenland, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.

Kartesz lists 21,757 species of vascular plants comprising the ferns, gymnosperms and flowering plants as being found in greater North America (including Alaska, Hawaii, Greenland, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

There are estimates within the scientific world that about half of the listed North American seed plants were originally native with the balance being comprised of Eurasian and tropical plants that have become established.