Japanese Boxwood

Japanese boxwood grows in warm areas of Honshu, Shikoku and Kyushu and is often planted in gardens and hedges. The Izu Islands, especially Mikurajima, have long been known as a source; a 2017 study by Japan's Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute found that Mikurajima's boxwood, grown slowly under constant sea wind into fine-ringed wood, has been sold to the mainland since the late Edo period and that the island now produces an estimated 5–6 tonnes a year, mostly from a plantation set out in the late 1920s.

True tsuge is extremely fine and even in texture, with growth rings that are barely visible, and takes a lustrous finish. Several look-alike woods are traded beside it: European box (Buxus sempervirens), Chinese box (Buxus sinica) and, as a cheaper substitute, "Siamese tsuge" (shamu-tsuge), a Southeast Asian Gardenia of the madder family (Rubiaceae) that is not a boxwood at all and is described by a timber importer as less dense and less smooth. Timber retailers also stock "Turkish tsuge" and "Castelo tsuge" (palo blanco) as substitutes.

Boxwood combs appear in the Man'yōshū, Japan's oldest poetry anthology: a poem by the maiden of Harima says that without her lover she would not even pick up the little boxwood comb in her comb box. Boxwood from Mt Asama near Ise (asama-tsuge) was famous and was sold as combs to pilgrims visiting Ise Shrine. A Hiroshima University plant guide records a story that families once planted a boxwood tree when a daughter was born and sold it to pay for her wedding. The wood is used for combs, seals, shogi pieces, abacus beads, woodblock details such as faces and hands in ukiyo-e, rulers, drafting and surveying instruments, and inlay.