246 
LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS. 
YEW. 
SORROW. 
There is in vegetables something that in¬ 
vites, attracts, or repels. 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, everything about it 
warns the passenger to keep aloof from its dan¬ 
gerous 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 experi¬ 
encing 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 
