CHAPTER XVI: THE YEWS 



Family Taxace^b 



Genus TAXUS, Linn. 



Evergreen trees and shrubs, with spreading, horizontal 

 branches, and purple, scaly bark. Leaves linear, spiny, 2-ranked, 

 pale beneath. Flowers minute, dioecious, in axillary heads. 

 Fruit berry-like, fleshy, sweet, scarlet. 



KEY TO SPECIES 



A. Foliage yellow-green, short. {T. brevi folia) pacific yew 



AA. Foliage dark green, long. (T. Floridana) Florida yew 



There are six known species of yew, all confined to the North- 

 ern Hemisphere. The fruit is farther away from the coniferous 

 type than that of any true member of the Family Coniferae. Yet 

 careful analysis of flowers and fruit show that the parts are 

 there — the scales and the naked ovules — though development 

 obliterates the signs of relationship to the pines and hemlocks. 



The Old-World Yew {T. baccata, Linn.) is native to Europe, 

 Asia and Africa. Its history is interwoven with the growth of 

 civilisation. In the folk lore of the English cottagers the yew 

 was saddest of all trees except the cypress. Branches of yew were 

 gathered to deck the house where a body lay awaiting burial. 

 The heads of mourners were bound with chaplets of yew. The 

 sombre yew tree drooping over a grave was a favourite symbol in 

 our great-grandmother's samplers, even so late as a century ago. 



"Pluck, pluck cypress, O pale maidens. 

 Dusk, O dusk the hall with yew! 

 Weep, and wring 

 Every hand; and every head 

 Bind with cypress and sad yew 

 For him that was of men most true." 



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