Family Taxaceae
Taxus baccata

The Yew lacks the graceful proportions of most of our trees, but it has for compensation a most obvious air of strength and endurance.
Many people see in cathedral aisles the reproduction in stone of the pine-forest or the beech-wood. Standing before an ancient Yew they may see whence came the idea for those clustered columns. They actually exist in the bole of the Yew, which presents the appearance not of a single trunk, but of several trunks that have coalesced. This condition is due to the Yew continually pushing out new shoots from the lower part of its bole, which take an upright direction, and coalesce with the old wood.
Although the Yew is a large tree, it is by no means a tall tree; the height of full-grown Yews in this country ranging between fifteen and fifty feet, although they are said to attain a greater length in India.
The bole of the Yew is short but massive, covered with thin red bark that flakes off in patches much after the manner of Plane-bark. Large specimens have a girth of from twenty-five to fifty feet – or even more. Such a circumference represents the growth of many centuries, for the annual growth rings are very thin. It is this very slow growth that produces the hard, compact and elastic wood that was so highly esteemed in the past. Not only is the timber elastic, but it is exceedingly durable, so that it is said, ‘A post of Yew will outlast a post of iron’. Its branches start from the trunk at only a few feet from the ground, and taking an almost horizontal direction, throw out a great number of leafy twigs, which provide a dense and extensive shade. The leaves are leathery in texture, curved somewhat after the manner of a reaping hook, shiny and dark above, pale and unpolished below.
The Yew is a diæcious tree – that is, one whose male and female blossoms are borne on separate trees – but the statement requires qualification to this extent, that occasionally a tree will be found bearing a branch or branches whose flowers are part of the sex opposite to those covering the greater part of the tree.
The male flower is almost round, a quarter of an inch across, and contains about half a dozen yellow anthers, the base surrounded by dry overlapping scales. They may be found during February and March, in profusion on the underside of the boughs. The female flower is much smaller, and consists of a fleshy disk with a few scales at its base, and on this stands a single seed-egg.
Much has been said and written as to the toxic properties of Yew-leaves, and it appears that if eaten in large quantities they will prove fatal to man, cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and possibly other animals, but small quantities of the leaves are usually harmless.
Along the chalk range of which the celebrated Box Hill forms part will be found many fine examples of the Yew, as at Cherkley Court, near Leatherhead, where there is an actual Yew forest.
It is reputed to be the longest-lived of all trees. It is naturally a tree of the uplands and lower hills, and shows a distinct preference for soils that contain plenty of lime.
The Irish Yew (Var. fastigiata) differs from the type in having all its branches growing erectly, after the manner of a Lombardy Poplar, and in the leaves being scattered promiscuously over the branchlets instead of being in two regular rows. It attains a height of twenty to thirty-five feet.