"' TdxllS.l LXXXVII. CONIFERiE. 419 



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}^ \ of commerce in Holland, where they were employed In themanufac- 



'^' ture of Geneva, imparting to it that peculiar flavour which our dis- 



^6- tillers sometimes imitate by oil of turpentine. The wood is reddish, 



\ I and serves for veneering. 



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3. Taxus Linn. Yew. 



Dicecious. — Barren fl. in oval catkins^ surrounded at the base 

 ^'^^- with imbricated bracteas, of which the inner ones are larger ; 



^^^ scales crowded, peltate, with 3 — 8 anther-cells on the lower 



^^ surface. — Fertile fl. a solitary erect ovule^ seated on a fleshy 



disk, with a few imbricated scales at the base. Seed solitary, 

 bony, contained in an open fleshy cup-shaped receptacle, 

 resemblin*T a drupe. — N'ame : toIov^ a how^ because the wood 

 was excellent for that purpose : rolov also means an arrow ; 

 perhaps arrows were poisoned with the juice of its berries. 



1. T. haccdta L. (common F.); leaves 2-ranked crowded 

 linear acute, flowers axillary sessile. E. B. t. 746. 



Mountain woods. T^ . 3, — A low tree^ with a trunk often of 

 considerable diameter. The noble Yew, which still remains in For- 

 tingal churchyard, at the entrance to Glen Lyon, measured, according 

 to Pennant, 56\ feet in circumference. The wood is hard, beautifully 

 veined, much valued for cabinet-makers* work, and was formerly 

 still more highly prized for making bows, on which account it is said 

 to have been planted extensively by our ancestors in churchyards. 

 Leaves distichous, linear, persistent, deep green. Drupes red, esteemed 

 poisonous. The Irish, or Florence-court Yew, now generally known in 

 our gardens, has scattered /ettre5, and, as Dr. J. T. Mackay observes, a 

 different habit from the common kind : it is T.fastigiata of Lind- 

 ley, T, baccata /3. Bab. : two of these were found among Juniper 

 bushes on the mountains near Benoughlin (Lord Enniskillen's estate) 

 about 80 or 100 years ago, by a tenant who brought one to Florence- 

 court, planting the other in his own garden; from the tree brought 

 to Florence-court all those now in existence originated : it is the 

 pistillate plant, but it seems to bear fruit if a hedge of the staminate 

 Ji j plants of the common kind be in the neighbourhood: the seeds, we 



understand, rarely yield the Irish form. 



T 6 



