6o THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



mealy-bush, a name sufficiently descriptive ; or sometimes 

 the whitten-tree. If we, still bearing in mind this grey 

 covering, translate this into whitened-tree, we shall not 

 be going far wrong, we imagine. A yet older name for 

 it is the lithy-tree, lithy being a word derived from the 

 Anglo-Saxon word for pliant. "The branches thereof," 

 declares Parkinson, in his Thealrum Botanicim} "are so 

 tough and strong withall, that they serve better for bands 

 to tye bundels or any other thing withall, or to make 

 wreathes to hold together the gates of fields, than either 

 withy or any other the like." 



YEW (Taxus Baccata) 



Though not at all a popular or desirable addition 

 to the plants of the hedgerow," we may occasionally en- 

 counter the yew ; why unpopular, why imdesirable, we 

 shall presently see. To most of us, however, the mental 

 picture we conjure up at the thought of the yew is not a 

 lowly hedge-plant, but a venerable and far-reaching tree, 

 densely branched, not of any great height, maybe, but of an 

 aspect suggestive of great antiquity. Yew-trees when young 

 are often rather acutely pyramidal, but as they grow older 

 they expand, until presently we find them round, or almost 



' "Collected by the many yeares travaile, industry and experience in this 

 subject by John Parkinson, apothecary of London and the King's Herbarist. 

 Published by the King's Majestyes especiall priviledge " 1640. 



2 In the formal gardens of our ancestors the yew is very frequently 

 seen, as it bears cutting well, and is an evergreen. At Wrest, in Bedfordshire, 

 one may see a hedge of it twenty feet high, and near Calne is one that is 

 ten feet thick and sixty yards long. It is needless, however, to particularise, 

 as every county in England, we suppose, will furnish its fine old ancestral 

 hall or stalely home standing in the midst of its parterres environed by 

 these living walls. 



