DESOEIPTIVE ENUMERATION OE TREES. 129 



The virtue of each consists solely iu its agreement 

 with its neighbours. 



I have only to add in commendation of this tree, 

 that its veins exceed in beauty those of most 

 other trees. Tables made of Yew, when the grain 

 is fine, are much superior to Mahogany ; and its 

 root vies in beauty with the ancient Citron. 



The famous Yew at Portiugall (Gilpin spells tlie word 

 Fotlieriugal) is still in existence, and we liave been 

 favoured by Mr. James Gaudie, of Perth, with some 

 interesting particulars of it, gathered during a visit which 

 he paid to it in 1876. He found, he says, very little of 

 the original tree existing, ' there being only about seven 

 or eight feet of the trunk still standing, or rather reclin- 

 ing, on the dyke which now encloses it from the farther 

 inroads of relic hunters.' ' It stands,' he adds, ' at the 

 end of the parish church, in the burying ground.' What 

 remains of it now, however, affords but little indication of 

 the enormous proportions it is said once to have possessed. 

 Round the trunk, and from the remains of the trunk, 

 shoots have sprung up, and are growing luxuriantly to a 

 height of about fifteen or twenty feet, bidding fair, in 

 time, to rival the venerable antiquity of the parent tree.' 

 This singularly ancient sylvan ruin is computed to be 

 between 2500 and 2700 years of age ! The Rev. Edward 

 H. Elers, the present vicar of JBoldre, and the occupier of 



