224 Yew- Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



decayed, and almost hollow on one side, but there 

 are many young shoots all around it ' (A.D. 1895). 



The Inch Lonaig yew, Loch Lomond, the pro- 

 perty of Sir James Colquhoun, according to Sir 

 T. Dick Lauder, measured in 1877, 13 feet in 

 circumference. Another was 10 feet 7 inches, and 

 40 feet high, In 1814, three hundred of the trees 

 in this island, which is known as Yew Tree Island, 

 were cut down, and Sir Robert Christison had an 

 opportunity of counting the annual rings in some of 

 them. One of these measured 2 7 inches in diameter, 

 and consequently the girth must have been about 

 7 feet. The section of wood measures 26 inches 

 across, one radius being 14*14 and the other ii'86. 

 On the former, Mr. Gordon counted 237 rings, on 

 the shorter Sir R. Christison counted 227. 1 



The rate of growth is, on an average of both radii, 

 one inch in eighteen years the two extremes being 

 sixteen and twenty. The average rate of growth 

 for the first century of its age, is (for average, the 

 longer radius an inch in 1 2 '9 years, for the shorter, 

 14*6) an inch of radius in 1375 years, and for its 

 last eighty years (3575 and 3675) only one inch 

 in 36^ years. 



There must have been some disturbing cause 

 affecting the growth of this tree. That at Boughton- 

 under-Blean had attained a girth of 9 feet 9 inches 

 in the known age of two hundred years. 



1 Op. cit. 



