PART II. 

 TREES AND PLANTS. 



NOTES ON THE VAEIETIES OF COMMON YEW 

 (Taxus baccata). 



[From " Proceedings of 'the Royal Horticultural Society" 

 March 1 8 6 1 , Vol. L,p. 49 1 ]. 



A3 many of our favourite evergreens hitherto reputed 

 hardy have been seriously damaged or destroyed 

 by the last winter's frost, we turn with increased interest 

 to those which remain to us uninjured. Bays, evergreen 

 Oaks, Arbutus, Euonymus, Laurustinus, Common Laurels, 

 Cypress, and in some cases, Portugal Laurels, are killed. 

 Araucarias, Deodaras, and some other South American 

 and Indian beauties have in many places complexions as 

 brown as ground rhubarb ; Phillyreas and more hardy 

 evergreens are stripped of their leaves. But our native 

 plant the Common Yew is safe ; none of the varieties have 

 a leaf injured in this valley of the Lea, where the thermo- 

 meter on Christmas Day 1860 was 5 degrees below zero. 



The Common Yew is no doubt well known to every 

 observer, but perhaps the numerous and beautiful forms 

 which have descended from it are as yet strangers to the 

 many. It is these varieties which I would now attempt to 

 describe. They are many in number, beautiful in appear- 

 ance, and vary greatly among themselves. Neat, graceful, 

 elegant, picturesque, sombre, massive, grand, are terms 

 which may be appropriately used to one or the other of 

 them. 



