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The genus Buxus has about seventy species in the family Buxaceae. The majority of species are tropical or subtropical, and only the European and some Asian species are frost-tolerant.

Buxus sempervirens, the common box, is an evergreen shrub or small tree growing 1 to 9 m tall. It is 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. The leaves are arranged in opposite pairs, green to yellow-green and oval, 1.5-3 cm long and 0.5-1.3 cm broad. The flowers are inconspicuous but highly scented, greenish-yellow, with no petals. The species typically grows on soils derived from chalk and limestone, usually as an understorey in forests of larger trees. Box Hill, Surrey is named after its notable box population, which comprises the largest area of native box woodland in England.

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

Slow growth makes boxwood very hard, possibly the hardest in Europe along with Cornus mas, and heavy. The wood is used for cabinet-making, flutes and oboes, engraving, marquetry, woodturning, tool handles and mallet heads, and as a substitute for ivory. The extremely fine endgrain suits woodblock printing and woodcut blocks, and box was the usual material for them in Europe. Boxwood is often used for chess pieces because of its relatively high density. Before the development of plastics, its density and stability made it one of the best available materials for measurement scales and technical drawing rulers. Boxwood has been used since antiquity to make parts for various stringed instruments, mostly tailpieces, chin rests and tuning pegs. It was a common material for making recorders in the eighteenth century.

Buxus sempervirens contains steroidal alkaloids such as cyclobuxine, and it also contains flavonoids. The toxic principle in the leaves is steroidal alkaloids, and the poison severity is low. Contact with the cell sap may cause skin irritation. The leaves were formerly used in place of quinine and as a fever reducer. They were also used as an auburn hair dye.