300 POLY G AMI A MONOECIA. A'triplex. 



TAXUS. Yew'. 



* T. baccdta. Common Y. Leaves two-ranked, crowded, 

 linear, flat. Receptacle of the barren flowers globular. 

 E. B. 746. Taxus. G. E. 1370. 



Woods. Churchyards. Cornbury Quarry. Sb. A very ancient 



Yew, in Iffley Church Yard. /. H. 

 Tree. March. 



Trunk straight, smooth, with deciduous bark. Ls. dark green, 

 smooth, evergreen. Fl. axillary, with tiled bract. Stamen- 

 bearing Jl. sulphur-coloured, without cal. Pistil-bearing ones 

 with a small, green cal., which at length becomes of a fine red 

 colour, waxy, and soft, surrounding the seed. 

 Wood hard, beautifully red grained : at present, for inlaying, 

 and for mill-wheel cogs. Planted in church yards for its funeral 

 appearance, and for archers' bow^s anciently. Bears clipping well, 

 hence suited to the now obsolete Dutch taste of gardening, and cut 

 into various grotesque shapes. Makes excellent screen-hedges. 

 The berries sweet, innocent : the green leaves deadly poisonous. 

 Tree said to attain more than four hundred years. Tree of great 

 diameter : one mentioned by Lightfoot, and seen by Pennant, of 

 fifty-six feet and a half in circumference. Bears transplanting 

 when old. Berries of the yew, sweet, mucilaginous, eatable. 

 R. W. Seeds poisonous? J. H. See Richard, Botanique Medicate. 



Class XXIII. POLYGAMIA. 



Order I. MONOECIA. 



A'TRIPLEX. Orache. 



A. patula. Spreadintj Halbert-leaved 0. Stem her- 

 baceous, spreading. Leaves triangular- spear-shaped, 

 somewhat halbert-shaped. Calyx of the fruit (warty) 

 tuberculated at the sides. E. B. 936. A. hastata. 

 C. 2. QQ. Sb. go. A. sylvestris vulgaris. G. E. 



Cultivated, and waste ground, dungliills. 



An. A.u(just. 



Root fibrous. Ls. alternate, stalked, mealy beneath : lower ones 



halbert-shaped, one of the auricles sometimes wanting, deeply, 



irregularly toothed ; the upper more naiTOw, spear-shaped, mostly 



1 Ang. Sax. See some fine lines to the " Yew," in Mr. Gillet's pleasing 

 little volume, entitled the " Juvenile Wreath," &c. p. 37. Duod. 1832. See 

 also, " Selection from Gent. Mag." vol. i. p. 346. 



