258 TAXACEiE 



It has flowers and fruit of shape and make so 

 distinctive that the various species are almost 

 regarded as monotypic. Its ovuliferous flower starts 

 life as a cone and ends as a seed-nut in a succu- 

 lent aril, open at the top, but its bright-red so- 

 called berries are too well known to need further 

 description. 



Other countries besides England and Ireland lay 

 claim to a proprietary interest in their own particular 

 form of Yew. China, Japan, Canada, Mexico, Florida, 

 and Pacific Coast regions have their own peculiar 

 name attached to their own particular specimens. 

 They differ, maybe, in mere matters of detail, but so 

 slightly that they have been for the most part reckoned 

 by the botanical world as members of one family, 

 hailing from a different geographical habitat. If 

 they cannot be looked upon as fraternal, in the same 

 sense as Wordsworth's group of Borrowdale Yews, 

 at all events they can all be rightly considered as 

 cousins not very distantly removed. 



From a scenic point of view the Yew has won its 

 admirers and numbered up its detractors. 



Though the Yew may be said to represent Erebus 

 (darkness) rather than his more radiant offspring, 

 JEther (light), and Hemera (day), yet scattered about 

 as dark, motionless specks upon the grey, green, 

 silent, and bare expanses of such places as, for instance, 

 say the Hampshire Downs, they are the making to 

 many of grand scenic effect. Before any one makes 

 any final pronouncement on the subject, we think 

 they ought to make an expedition by boat down the 

 River Wye, from Ross to Chepstow, in early summer, 

 when the dark-clad Yews stand out in contrast to 

 the light green colouring of their deciduous sur- 

 roundings, bursting into spring attire on the well- 

 wooded hill-sides. We wish too — but it is too late 

 in the day for that — that we could have asked old 



