THE YEW FAMILY. TAXACE^E 



THIS is a small family of evergreen trees or shrubs mostly 

 found in southern latitudes, although their remains, found 

 embedded in the rocks of Greenland, show that at one time 

 they ranged far north. A few well-known trees grow in tem- 

 perate regions, and have been so closely connected with the 

 pursuits and habitations of man, that the name is a familar 

 one in literature. 



They are small trees or shrubs with stiff linear leaves, really 

 arranged spirally on the stem, but so spread out as to make 

 them appear to be in two rows. The wood is hard, durable 

 and slightly resinous. The family closely resembles the coni- 

 fers, from which it is most easily distinguished by the fruit. 

 This is a horny nutlet, partly surrounded by a fleshy, sometimes 

 jellylike mass, the whole enclosed at the base by several rows 

 of overlapping scales. This fleshy fruit has the reputation of 

 being deadly poison, but the belief seems to lack any founda- 

 tion in fact. 



The yews were formerly considered as belonging to the 

 conifers, and are still sometimes so regarded in England. The 

 latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the 

 European yew as "a tree which belongs to a genus of Conif- 

 erae, in which the ordinarily woody cone is represented by a 

 single seed surrounded by a fleshy cup." In other countries, 

 however, these trees are now regarded as distinct from the 

 family pinaceae. 



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