378 



TAXACE.E. 



and cracked by the action of storms upon the boughs, 

 rain finds access and causes decay, and the dead leaves, 

 and dung of bats, birds, &c, falling in, combine, with the 

 rotten wood, to form a soft and rich mould, into which a 

 bud shooting out from a neighbouring part (if not actually 

 covered by the mould,) is naturally drawn by the moisture 

 and shade, and transformed into a root, and which root, 

 as the fissure widened and deepened by the slow but sure 

 process of decay, would descend and thicken till it ulti- 

 mately fixed itself in the soil below. After a lapse of 

 perhaps several centuries, decay gradually advancing would 

 at last reach the circumference of the trunk, and produce 

 a rift on the side ; through this the rotten mould would 

 fall out, gradually exposing the root it had inducted 

 downwards, which, in consecpience of the combined in- 

 fluence of light and air acting upon it, would forthwith 

 begin to deposit annual layers of true wood, and to be 

 covered with a true bark. In the mean time it would 

 have shot up a stem near its point of union, and have 

 formed for itself an independent head and branches." 



In the parish of Riblesford, near Bewdley, Worcester- 

 shire, mention is made in the first volume of the "Analyst, 11 

 p. 81, of a fine Yew tree growing out of, and nearly filling 

 the hollow of a pollard oak, whose circumference near the 

 ground is seventeen feet. Both trees are clothed with 

 numerous branches, which make a fine appearance ; " the 

 dark green foliage of the Yew towering above the boughs 

 of its ancient companion." In this case the seed of the 

 Yew seems to have been deposited in the decaying top 

 of the pollard, where it vegetated, and continued gradually 

 to send down its roots till they penetrated the ground 

 below. 



Scotland, also, can boast of very remarkable Yew trees, 



