112 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



B. Dwarf forms with Uaves radially arranged on the branchlets. 



5. Var. ericoides. 



Taxus baccata ericoides, Carrifere, Conif. 519 (1855). 

 Taxus baccata empetri/olia, Hort. 



A low shrub with ascending branches. Leaves generally radially arranged, but 

 occasionally two- ranked, uniform in size, falcate, short, acute, tapering to a fine 

 cartilaginous point. 



6. Var. nana. 



Taxus baccata nana. Knight, Syn. Conif. 52. 

 Taxus Foxii, Hort. 



A dwarf shrub. Leaves generally radially arranged, some being two-ranked ; 

 very variable in length, but always short, straight or falcate, often twisted or curved. 



C. Varieties with leaves distichously arranged, assuming pendulous, prostrate, 

 and other non-fastigiate habits. 



7. Var, Dovastoni, Dovaston Yew. 



Taxus baccata Dovastoni, Loudon, loc. cit., 2082 (1838). 



A tree or large shrub, with spreading branches, arising in verticils, and becom- 

 ing very pendulous at their extremities. Leaves dark green with an abruptly 

 mucronate apex. 



An account of the original tree, from which this variety has been propagated, is 

 given in Loudon and in Leighton's Flora of Shropshire.^ This tree was planted as 

 a seedling about the year 1777 at Westfelton, near Shrewsbury. It was in vigorous 

 health in 1900, and measured then 8 feet 10 inches in girth at 4"^ feet from the 

 ground. Nineteen years previously its girth was 7 feet 11 inches. It is described 

 as having a single leader, with branches pendulous to the ground. The original 

 tree is monoecious ; one branch only producing fertile berries, from which seedlings 

 were raised, which reproduced the habit of the parent.' Barron * states that all his 

 Dovaston yews are female trees. Carri^re' sowed seeds of this form on many 

 occasions, and the offspring was always like the common yew, doubtless 

 due to his Dovaston yews being fertilised by the pollen of ordinary yew trees in the 

 vicinity. 



Carriere further states that MM. Thibaut and Keteleer obtained in 

 1865, from seeds of this variety, plants which were in the proportion of three- 

 fourths variegated in foliage and one-fourth green ; but in no case was the pendulous 

 habit observed. The variegated plants passed into commerce as Dovastoni variegata ; 

 but these were simply ordinary variegated yews. A sub-variety, however, occurs in 

 which the leaves of the Dovaston yew are variegated with yellow ; and this is 

 known as var. Dovastoni aureo-variegata. 



8. Var. pendula. Growing at Kew, this is an irregularly branching wide, low, 



Card. Ckron. 1900, xxvii. p. I46, where a figure and full details of the Dovaston yew are given. 



^ Ibid. 1868, p. 992. He gives the dimensions of the Westfelton tree in 1876 as 34 feet high by 7^ feet in girth. 

 Garden, ix. 341. 



' Traitigin. des Coniftres, iL 763 (1867). 



