Sarcococca confusa, sweet box, is one of the great winter-fragrance shrubs, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown for a perfume out of all proportion to the flowers that carry it. In the depths of winter the small, tassel-like, creamy white flowers open along the stems, tucked among the leaves and easy to miss by eye, but their sweet, honeyed scent carries yards on a mild day and stops passersby in their tracks.
A spreading, half hardy evergreen shrub with fragrant flowers and narrow, glossy leaves. It grows well in shade and is related to Boxwood. Not susceptible to diseases and insects. Displays high drought tolerance once established. Native to western China.
Sarcococca orientalis is a fragrant, uncommon sweet box from China, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown, like its kin, for a winter perfume far larger than the flowers that carry it. In late winter small white flowers open along the stems, modest to the eye but richly and sweetly scented, filling a still, mild day with fragrance and giving the shade garden a lift when little else stirs.
Sarcococca ruscifolia, the fragrant sweet box, is an evergreen shrub of the boxwood family, native to China and East Asia, grown for a winter perfume that belies the tiny flowers that carry it. In late winter and early spring the small, creamy white flowers open along the glossy stems, easy to overlook by eye but powerfully sweet on the air, and unlike the black-fruited sweet boxes, this species follows the flowers with glowing red berries.
Evergreen shrub with milk-white flowers and dark red fruits. Prefers warmer climates and shade. Leaves are suggestive of Ruscus and are glossy. Related to Boxwood.
Upright wide spreading.evergreen shrub with distinctive willow-like narrow leaves. Unlike but related to Boxwood. Dark purple to black fruit. This species from the western Himalayas is very little known and seldom available from nurseries in the U.S. Perhaps a bit less cold hardy than some of the other Sarcococca species but a good plant for shady garden areas in the Deep South.
A Wodlanders introduction collected by Frank Bell in Yunnan, China, this sweet box appears much like Sarcococca hookerana and may be S. hookeriana digyna. We are giving you an opportunity to test and evaluate it along with us. Related to Boxwood, glossy leafed, shade-demanding evergreens.
Among the winter-flowering shade shrubs, few reward a cold-season garden as generously as Sarcococca wallichii, the Himalayan sweet box. The genus name joins the Greek sarco, flesh, with kokkos, berry, a nod to the fleshy fruits that follow the flowers, while the species honors Nathaniel Wallich, the Danish surgeon-botanist who superintended the Calcutta botanic garden in the early nineteenth century and sent so many Himalayan plants west. Sarcococca belongs to the box family, Buxaceae, and shares that clan's patience: dense, slow, and evergreen, with the quiet good manners of a plant built for the long haul.
