

ADDENDA TO PAPER ON DARLEV VEW. 123 



Four feet from ground, 13 feet 4 inches. 



Five do. do. n feet 10 inches. 



Circumference of branches, 213 feet 4 inches. 



Height, 44 feet 6 inches. 

 There is a yew tree in Lord Vernon's grounds, Sudbury, whose 

 measurements are : — 



Butt at ground, 14 feet 5 inches. 



Four feet from ground, 13 feet 3 inches. 



Five do. do. 12 feet 3 inches. 



Circumference of branches, 221 feet. 



Height, 58 feet. 

 There are two finely grown yew trees in Osmaston-by-Derby 

 churchyard. The one in the middle measures at four feet from 

 the ground 8 feet round, with a branch diameter of 42 feet ; 

 the other, further west, measures 7 feet at the same height 

 from the ground, with a branch diameter of 45 feet. Both of 

 these trees are flourishing most luxuriantly. Tradition says they 

 were planted in 1650. 



Various reasons have been given for the existence of yew trees 

 in churchyards, but the question has not yet been answered 

 satisfactorily. It seems to me that the most natural and likely 

 one is, that from its being always green, it was considered a fitting 

 tree to plant where bodies were buried, as a symbol of the 

 immortality of the soul. Evergreen trees from the very earliest 

 ages were utilized as emblems of this thought. The Egyptians 

 had an idea that the palm tree was immortal, and they represented 

 the soul by a palm branch. In the infernal judgment of Serapis, 

 taken from the copy of an Egyptian manuscript on papyrus, there 

 is Anubis holding the scales, in one of which is a palm branch, 

 and in the other something which is equivalent to the soul 

 balanced against it.* In the Poems of Ossian, translated by 

 Macpherson, the Bard says — " Here rests their dust Cuthullin ! 

 these lonely yews sprung from their tombs, and shade them from 

 the storm," thus showing that even among the Celts the yew was 

 an accompaniment of burial grounds. The Greeks and Romans 



* See Pritchard's Egypt. Mythology, page 204, plate I. 



