Taxus 115 



the date as 1828, and the locality as a bed of thorn seedlings in the Bache Nurseries, 

 Chester. 



Only female plants of this variety are known, and it is reproduced by grafting. 

 Its flowers are doubtless fertilised by the pollen of common yew trees near at hand, 

 and as a rule it produces a great crop of berries. Messrs. Dickson and Sons have 

 frequently sown seeds which invariably produced the common yew. 



V^jr. adpressa strida is a form of this variety in which the branches are erect or 

 ascending. It is not known whether it originated as a seedling or as a sport fixed 

 by grafting. It was raised by Mr. Standish. 



Van adpressa aurea is a form with golden leaves. 



Var. adpressa variegata is a form with the young shoots suffused with a silvery 

 yellow colour. This was exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society on August 27, 

 1889. 



There are fine examples of var. adpressa in Kew Gardens. 



Seedling ^ 



The two cotyledons, together with the seed-case which envelops them as a cap, 

 are carried above ground by the lengthening caulicle ; and speedily casting off the 

 remains of the seed-case, act as if they were true leaves. They differ from the latter 

 in bearing stomata on the upper and not on the lower surface, and in having their 

 apices rounded and not acute. The young stem, angled by the decurrent bases of 

 the leaves, gives off at first three or four opposite pairs of true leaves, which are 

 succeeded in vigorous plants by a few alternate leaves, crowded at the summit 

 around a terminal bud, which in all cases closes the first season's growth, when the 

 young plant is i to 3 inches high. The caulicle, i to 2 inches in length, ends in 

 a strong tap-root, which descends several inches into the soil, and gives off a few 

 lateral fibres. 



The growth of the seedling during the next four or five years is very slow, often 

 scarcely an inch annually. Afterwards the growth becomes more rapid. 



Sexes, Flowers, Fruit, Buds 



The yew is normally dioecious ; but exceptions occur, and in our account of the 

 cultivated varieties two or three instances of monoecious trees have been mentioned. 

 The celebrated yew at Buckland,^ Kent, is monoecious. As a rule it is only a single 

 twig or branch which bears flowers of a different sex from those on the rest of the 

 tree. A yew * at Hohenheimer, near Stuttgart, is reported, however, to bear male 

 and female flowers irregularly over the whole tree, each kind, however, on separate 

 twigs. There is a specimen at Kew of a branch, sent in 1885 by the Rev. T. J. C. 

 Valpy of Elsing, Norfolk, which bears both male flowers and fruit. 



Figured in Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 553, fig. 677 (1892). 

 2 Card. Chron. 1880, xiii. 556. There are specimens of this yew in the Kew herbarium. 



' Kirchner, loc. at. 74. 



