296 



A MANUAL OP THE CONIPEK^!. 



Taxus adpressa erecta is an upright variety of the preceding ( 

 which originated in the Nursery of Messrs. Standish, at Ascot. 



Taxus adpressa variegata has the tips of many of its 

 branches creamy-white. 



Taxus baccata.— The common Yew in its most usual form, m 

 a wild state, is a low tree rarely exceeding 40 feet in height, 



often much less, varying in height and 

 size according to the soil and situation m 

 which it is growing, and presenting a 

 sky outline rather peaked and pointed, but 

 becoming rounded in mature age. It has 

 a short trunk, very thick in proportion to 

 the size of the tree, which divides or sends 

 out branches at a short distance from the 

 ground. The branches are much subdivided, 

 and the branchlets are clothed with dark 

 green shining persistent leaves in two lateral 

 double rows, but sometimes more or less 

 scattered, especially in some of its varieties. 

 The fruit consists of a brownish oval nut, 

 enclosed in a glutinous scarlet envelope or 

 Fi g r6i.-F ra ctmcationoftheCom m on pericarp, open at the top, through which 

 InJrJ^JgSSgSZSTti the nut protrudes. The fruit-bearing trees 

 ™r ?eft-J£i^t£iT$ n t& are very handsome in autumn when covered 



with their bright coloured berries. 



The Yew, like the Juniper, is dioecious relatively — not absolutely — 

 intermediate degrees of fertility being constantly met with. Thus some 

 trees are annually covered with fruit, others bear but little — certain 

 branches only being fertile, while others, again, never produce any. 

 Many individual trees are completely dicecious, but there are others 

 that are not so. Loudon observes that " The Yew is of slow growth, 

 but in favourable situations it will attain the height of 6 or 8 feet 

 in ten years. In twenty years it will attain the height of 15 feet, 

 and it will continue growing for one hundred years, after which it 

 becomes comparatively stationary, but will live for many centuries." * 

 In a light warm soil the growth of young plants is somewhat more 

 rapid than that stated by Loudon. 



* Arb. et Frut., p. 2069, 



