I had a difficult time putting together the Friday fun quiz last week with all those hyperlinks and all so I thought we could exercise our brains a different way by learning some facts about plants we use everyday. Today we'll do Boxwood, A plant that we sell a real lot of.

Various medicaments have been extracted from the leaves of Boxwood. These potions where employed mostly by quacks and physician wanna-bees and almost always had a negative result. As late as the 19th century a concoction derived from boxwood leaves was recomended for leprosies. (I thought they just shipped them all to an island someplace and let nature take it's course) The leaves in fact yield an extract called buxine which was used during WWII as a narcotic, sedative, and to get someone to puke.

One of the Quacks from the ignorant ages suggested that if you boil boxwood leaves and dust from the wood in lye, the rusulting potion will grow hair. There is a story about a young woman who lost all of her hair due to "milignant Dysentary" (whatever the hell that is) She washed her head in the stuff and grew "a fine mane of chestnut locks". Unfortunately for her, but fortunate for us, cause this parts funny. She lacked the foresight to protect her face and neck and ended up looking like an ape. (Ha!)

Boxwood are poisonous to camels (that's good to know) and the stupid creatures love them, and in parts of persia where boxwood are abundent the caravans have to be restricted to horese, mules, or oxen. (or so it is said)

Here at Rushton Farms we sell more than 20,000 boxwood every year.

Have a nice weekend

--Frank