72 
BOTANICAL NOTES. 
work in 1803 under the title of A Collection of Gloucestershire 
Antiquities. The text accompanying the plate in the original 
work states : ' 1 The Yew Tree seen in the Foreground is a very 
remarkable one. The trunk at a small Distance from the Ground 
swells out to a considerable Size, being twenty-three Feet in 
Circumference at the largest part and apparently sound." Mr. 
H. W. Bruton, of Gloucester, who possesses the original drawing 
prepared by Lysons, measured the tree in October, 1887, and found 
its girth to be 25ft. 6in.* At Christmas, 1913, the hollow trunk of 
this tree was examined by the present writer. It had split in two 
places showing gaps between two and three feet wide. The por- 
tion between the splits was leaning outwards under the weight of 
a heavy bough, and seemed likely to fall at no distant date. 
* See Notes and Queries, II. S. VIII. 475. 
