252 LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, 
YEW. 
SORROW. 
There is in vegetables something that invites, 
attracts, or repels us. The Yew is among all 
nations the emblem of sorrow. Its barkless trunk, 
its dark green foliage, with which its fruit, looking 
like drops of blood, stands in harsh contrast — in 
short, every thing about it warns the passenger to 
keep aloof from its dangerous shade. Persons who 
sleep under a Yew-tree are liable to be seized with 
dizziness, heaviness, and violent head-ache. Its 
sprays poison asses and horses, which eat them ; its 
juice is pernicious to man ; but the fruit is harmless, 
for children eat it without experiencing any ill 
effects. It exhausts the soil which supports it, and 
destroys all other plants that spring up beneath it. 
By our ancestors the Yew was planted in burial- 
grounds, where trees of this kind, of great age and 
size, may occasionally be seen to this day. They 
were not destined merely to overshadow the graves 
