TAXACEAE 

 The Yew Family 



The yews are trees and shrubs, evergreen in America and 

 similar in aspect to the pines, having linear leaves and usually 

 bearing pistils and stamens in separate floral structures. The 

 male flowers are globular, with a few stamens, the anthers of 

 which are arranged beneath a shieldlike, usually more or less 

 lobed connecting plate, and the pistillate flowers bear one ovule 

 each, which develops into a bony-coated seed with a large, 

 fleshy scale for cover. 



The family is represented in North America and in Illinois 

 only by the following native species. 



TAXUS CANADENSIS Marshall 



American Yew Canada Yew Ground Hemlock 



The American Yew, fig. 1, is a low and sprawling evergreen 

 usually less than 3 feet high, though occasionally it grows up- 

 right to a height of nearly 5 feet. Its branches, which spread 

 3 to 5 feet from the center of the plant, generally turn upward 



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FIG. 1 

 Taxus canadensis 



I 25 1 



