EVERGREEN ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
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The Yew Tree. Taxus. 
Nat. Ord. Taxacese. Lin, Syst. Moncecia, Monadelphia. 
The European Yew is a slow-growing, evergreen tree, 
which often when full grown, measures forty feet in height, 
and a third more in the diameter of its branches. The fo- 
liage is flat, linear, and is placed in two rows, like that of the 
Hemlock tree, though much darker in colour. The flowers 
are brown or greenish, and inconspicuous, but they are suc- 
ceeded by beautiful scarlet berries, about half or three-fourths 
of an inch in diameter, which are open at the end, where a 
small nut or seed is deposited. These berries have an ex- 
quisitely delicate, waxen appearance, and contribute highly 
to the beauty of the tree. 
The growth of this tree, even in its native soil, is by no 
means rapid. In twenty years, says Loudon, it will attain 
the height of fifteen or eighteen feet, and it will continue 
growing for one hundred years ; after which it becomes 
comparatively stationary, but will live many centuries. 
When young, the Yew is rather compact and bushy in its 
form ; but as it grows old, the foliage spreads out in fine 
horizontal masses, the outline of the tree is irregularly varied, 
and the whole ultimately becomes highly venerable and pic- 
turesque. When standing alone, it generally shoots out into 
branches at some three or four feet above the surface of the 
ground, and is ramified into a great number of close branches. 
In England, it has been customary, since the earliest set- 
tlement of that island by the Britons, to plant the Yew in 
churchyards ; and it is therefore as decidedly consecrated to 
this purpose there, as the Cypress is in the south of Europe. 
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