YEW FAMILY 



595 



Ord. XCIII. Taxace^.— The Yew Family 



A small Order of trees and shrubs, represented in both hemi- 

 spheres and comprising 9 genera and about 75 species. Their 

 flowers are dioecious and they do not form perfect cones^ the ovules 

 being frequently not on the carpels but in their axils, or the 

 carpels being altogether absent. The seed has either a fleshy 

 testa, or is surrounded by a fleshy aril. Several members of the 



tAxus baccata {Common Yeiv). 



Order yield valuable timber, such as the Huon Pine {Dacrydium 

 Franklinii) of Tasmania. The Yews (Tdxus) are remarkable 

 among Coniferae for the absence of resin. 



I. Taxus, of which T. baccata (Common Yew) is the only 

 British species, is an evergreen tree, seldom of any great height, 

 but reaching a great age, possibly sometimes 2,000 years, and 

 a diameter of nearly 10 feet; bark brown, fibrous; leaves linear. 



