240 TAXACETE ^ 



disposition of these foreign cousins of our Yew. In 

 all probability Sir W. Scott was sublimely uncon- 

 scious of the very existence of either of them. He died 

 in the thirties of the last century, while the Cephalo- 

 taxus and Podocarpus made their debut amongst us 

 at a later date, in the forties or fifties of the same 

 epoch. Our British-grown Podocarps go unmentioned 

 on the pages of Loudon, and are severely left alone 

 in the seven volumes of the Trees of Great Britain ; 

 presumably for the all-sufficient reason that so far 

 they have failed here to attain to the dignity, or rise 

 to the height, of the status of recognised and full- 

 blown treehood. 



With a light-hearted disregard for botanical eti- 

 quette we have coupled together, for the purpose of 

 a discussion upon them, those (the Cephalotaxus and 

 Podocarpeae) whom Kew's genealogical table has 

 put further asunder. In that list they are enumerated 

 as intertribally, if not directly tribally, connected. 



To allocate them in stricter regard to their 

 place in the genealogical tree and propinquity of 

 relationship, as fellow sub-tribesmen, the Cephalo- 

 taxus should range alongside the Torreyas as fellow 

 Salisburineans, and the Podocarps come next to the 

 Yew as fellow Taxineans. 



The long-spun-out Greek names that they bear 

 have been ominously avoided by the majority of 

 authors who traverse the many highways and by- 

 paths of composition. They are words, evidently, 

 that, qua words, neither invite writers nor entice 

 poets. There is often a Dorian harshness about the 

 sound of Greek nouns manufactured into English 

 expressions of language, that flings defiance at the 

 varied capacities and concentrated talents of all the 

 efforts of the combined nine Muses thrown into one. 



The name Cephalotaxus is derived from the Greek 

 words Ke<\)aXr} (head) — in allusion to the form of the 



