I. S. THE YEW. Ill 



The Yew. Ground Hemlock. Taxus Canadensis. Willdenow. 



The European variety figured in Loudon ; Arboretum, VIII, Plate 293, and 

 on pages 2074, 5, 7, 8, 9 ; and by Strutt, in Sylva Britannica. 



In various parts of the western counties of Massachusetts, 

 occurs a humble, almost prostrate evergreen, conspicuous for 

 the rich and deep green of its foliage. It is the American yew. 

 The road which leads from Pittsfield to Williamstown, after 

 following up the valley of the Housatonic to its extremity, and 

 crossing a low ridge of hills which supply some of its upper 

 streams, descends the northern declivity and enters the valley 

 of the Hoosic, with the magnificent C4reen Mountain range on 

 the right, and the Hoosic Mountains on the left. Every trav- 

 eller will remember a deep gorge, where he passes for some dis- 

 tance under the shade of lofty trees, the rock maple, the white 

 and yellow birch, and the hemlock, by the side of that wild and 

 noisy stream, not yet visible. On emerging, and getting a sight 

 of the river and its banks, he will perhaps remember, — if he is 

 a lover of trees he cannot forget, — on the right bank, at the very 

 foot of the mountain, along which the stream runs, and shaded 

 from the morning's sun by the trees which clothe its side, a mass 

 or long bed, of the most vivid and delicious green. The Amer- 

 ican yew grows there in great luxuriance.. The traveller will 

 be well rewarded for picking his way across the rocky river, to 

 examine it. It delights in such scenes, and perhaps nowhere 

 nourishes in greater beauty than on that spot. 



The stem of the American yew trails on the ground or just 

 beneath the surface, to the distance of six or eight feet. Beneath 

 the surface, it is covered with a smooth dark purple bark ; where 

 it protrudes above, it takes a grayish brown color. The terminal 

 stems are slightly ascending; irregularly branched with crooked 

 branches. The recent green shoots are very small and slender, 

 with two slightly projecting ridges below the base of each leaf. 

 The leaves arrange themselves in two rows ; they are close set, 

 half an inch long, linear, flattened, rounded at the base, and 

 very pointed at the extremity, with the mid-rib slightly pro- 



