CONIPEES OF THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION. 41 



dark reddish brown. It is extremely durable under all kinds of 

 exposure and has remarkable elasticity. 



The yew trees are of small or medium size, but they live to a great 

 age, specimens of the common European yew tree being said to have 

 attained an age of from 2,000 to 3,000 years. A marked character- 

 istic of the yews is their ability to reproduce themselves by perma- 

 nent sprouts from cut stumps, and to grow also from cuttings. 



Seven different species of yew are now known, 58 two of these occur- 

 ring in Europe, Africa, Asia, and Japan, and four species in North 

 America. Three of the North American yews inhabit the United 

 States and adjacent portions of Canada, while so far as is now known, 

 a fourth is confined to Mexico. One of our species, a small tree, is 

 confined to Florida; another is a shrub growing in our northeastern 

 States and in adjacent Canadian Provinces; while the fourth species, 

 a small or medium size tree, inhabits our Pacific and northern Rocky 

 Mountain forests, extending northward into adjacent Canadian 

 territory (Map No. 9). 



The yews are of very ancient origin. Fruits of Taxus have been 

 found in the European Oligocene, while remains of the European 

 yew tree (Taxus baccata L.) have been discovered in the late Miocene 

 of Europe and are also common throughout the Pliocene and Pleis- 

 tocene of that region. Remains of a shrubby species now living 

 and known as Taxus canadensis Marsh, have been found in the 

 Pleistocene of Manitoba, Ontario, Nova Scotia, Iowa, and Illinois. 59 



WESTERN YEW. 



Taxus brevifolia Nuttall. 



COMMON NAME AND EARLY HISTORY. 



Taxus brevifolia is little known as a distinct species except to 

 botanists and foresters. Woodsmen within its natural range are 

 familiar with it, but they call it simply a yew." The common name 

 western yeWj suggested here, is desirable because it serves to avoid 

 confusion of this tree with the two other yews that occur in the United 

 States. 



The earliest record we have of the discovery of western yew is by 

 the Scotch explorer David Douglas, who found it in 1825 on the lower 

 Columbia River, Oreg. William Jackson Hooker, an .English botan- 

 ist, published the first account of it in 1839, but he treated it as a form 

 only of the European yew, Taxus baccata Linneus, which became 

 known to botanists in 1753. It remained for Thomas Nuttall to 



58 Elwes and Henry (The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, I, 100, 101, 1906) have reduced six of these 

 to varietal rank under Taxus baccata. 



59 Fide Dr. Edward W. Berry, paleontologist Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md. 



