The Botanic Annual, 371 



Chap. vii. Sketch of the Coniferse. We extract the follow- 

 ing passage from the conckision of the 5th chapter, because 

 it serves to ekicidate certain phenomena in the decay of aged 

 trees, which we have frequently witnessed, but, we confess, 

 without having been able to assign an adequate cause: — 



" In the boles of large trees of very advanced age, there are often singu- 

 lar struggles for life. In some of these, yews for instance, the very vigour 

 of the growth seems to hasten the decay of part of the stem. Those 

 branches which are nearest the earth are the least exposed to atmospheric 

 action ; and the efforts which they make occasion those gnarls and clumps 

 that are so abundant in those trees. But they push inwards at the same 

 time, and by that means compress the vessels in the central parts, and 

 destroy their action. If the upper branches be feeble, as compared with 

 the under ones, an entire excavation is the result ; but if these branches 

 be strong, each of them is able to maintain its state of growth ; and in those 

 cases, the lower part of the trunk appears like a bundle of rods in a case. 

 In a churchyard at the picturesque village of Loose, in Kent, there is a 

 fine old yew, with a trunk nearly 40 ft. in circumference, and a vigorous 

 head more than 64 ft. in extent, which affords a good specimen of this 

 resistance of decay along certain lines diffused through the trunk. Some 

 of the other Coniferae have the same habit ; among others, the Norfolk 

 Island pine ; but the durable parts in it are chiefly knots, which are found 

 dark and resinous in the decayed trunks." (p. 217*, 218.) 



Our author, at p. 438., appears to cast some doubt on the 

 generally received opinion, " that the leaves and twigs of 

 the yew are poisonous to cattle." We have been taught, and 

 are rather inclined to believe, that though the yew may be 

 eaten, perhaps with impunity, in a living or fresh state, yet 

 that, when withered, it often proves fatal to cattle which 

 devour it. There are many passages throughout the work, 

 which we feel a strong temptation, did space permit, to 

 transfer to our own pages. But we must forbear ; and shall 

 make but one other extract, and that relating to a subject 

 which appears to us to be deserving of further observation 

 and experiment : — 



" The old adage, * soon ripe, soon rotten,' certainly applies to the indi- 

 vidual structures of vegetables ; and it is a popular, and, we rather think, 

 a well-founded opinion, that in trees of the same species, and on the same 

 soil, those which expand their leaves last in the spring, and shed them last 

 in the autumn, afford the best timber. We knou} that that is the case with 

 the ash and the beech, and we are inclined to believe that it is general, and 

 that it extends to evergreens as well as to deciduous trees j and it is just what 

 might, in reason, be expected. The early spring, from its frequent alter- 

 nations of heat and cold, is the trying season for vegetation ,• and the struc- 

 tures, by which the timber is ultimately elaborated, being repeatedly checked 

 in their formation, cannot, in the nature of things, perform their functions 

 so well as when they meet with no check during the period of their 

 growth." (p. 364, 365.) 



* In the same page, only a few lines above the foregoing extract, men- 

 tion is made of " the great chestnut tree of Tamworth: " we presume this 

 is a mere misprint for " the great chestnut tree of TortworthP 



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