376 TAXACE.E. 



of which is given by the Rev. W. T. Bree, in the sixth 

 volume of the " Magazine of Natural History," is apparently 

 a tree of very great antiquity, and of very curious forma- 

 tion and grotesque appearance ; the latter seems in a great 

 measure to have been caused by the shattered condition 

 to which it was reduced by lightning about the middle 

 of the last century. A figure of its interesting remains 

 is given in the " Arboretum Britannicura." An enormous 

 Yew, with a hollow trunk of thirty-seven feet in circum- 

 ference, stands in the churchyard of Tisbury, in Dorset- 

 shire ; Sir T. D. Lauder, in his edition of " Gilpin," 

 mentions that " seventeen persons lately breakfasted in its 

 interior." The tree is entered by means of a rustic gate. 



The Tytherly Yews, two trees g-rowing in the church- 

 yard at Queenwood, near Tytherly, in Wiltshire, are 

 upwards of five hundred years old. The largest is twenty- 

 eight feet high, with a trunk three feet six inches in 

 diameter. Loudon mentions that in the same wood there 

 are two avenues of Yew trees, one of four hundred and 

 fourteen yards long, consisting of one hundred and sixty- 

 two Yews, supposed to be about two hundred years old. 

 They average a height of thirty feet, with trunks two 

 feet in diameter at two feet from the ground. The other 

 avenue, planted upwards of one hundred and sixty years 

 ago, and about four hundred yards long, consists of one 

 hundred and twenty trees, averaging about twenty-four 

 feet high, with trunks nearly two feet in diameter. 



In Harlington churchyard, between Brentford and 

 Hounslow, Loudon refers to a Yew not only remarkable 

 for its size, but for having once been clipped into a regular 

 form; a print of the tree in that state appeared in 1729, 

 a copy of which is given in the " Arboretum Britannicum," 

 to which we refer our readers ; this tree is stated to be 



