Yew
Yews are a family (Taxaceae) of evergreen coniferous trees and shrubs often used in landscaping and ornamental horticulture. Yews are extremely slow growing. The yew has flat, dark-green needles, reddish bark, and bears seeds with red arils[?] which, in Canada are eaten by cedar waxwings and other birds. Because the yew is a conifer it technically doesn't yield berries.In England yews often occur in churchyards, as a symbol of long life, and some are known to be 2000 years old. An aternative explanation is that the poisonous berries discourage farmers and drovers from letting their animals wander into the burial grounds.
Symbolically, yews are considered the trees of death.
Yew wood is white, flexible, and tough, and was traditionally used to make bows, especially the English longbow.
A species of yew native to the Pacific Northwest, the Pacific Yew, Taxus pacificus, in the United States is the source of taxol, a drug with apparent anti-cancer activity.
All species of yew contain the alkaloid taxine[?], which comes in several varieties indicated by letters. All parts of the tree except the arils contain dangerously toxic amounts of the alkaloid. When injested, the toxins work so quickly that the victim simply gasps and then drops dead from heart failure. Children sometimes eat the arils, but they are fortunately the least toxic part. Grazing animals are sometimes found dead near yew trees.
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shot, and really, from the report of the whip, I was at first uncertain
southerly, we continued along it until we got to its very head; then,
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misfortunes of the day, I could not but admire the beauty of the scene.
of one of the drays being out of repair, and requiring a new axle-tree.
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a-half in length. It is surrounded apparently on every side by hills. The
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cannot be seen, runs to the north-west, of about half a mile in breadth.
leave little space between them and its banks. The Morumbidgee itself,
presents a still, deep sheet of water to the view, over which the
more sombre foliage. To the west, a high line of flooded-gum trees
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the hills backing it, together with the valley, are capable of depasturing
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it meets some hills about 10 miles to the W.N.W. of the plain, thus
for abundance of pasture, can nowhere be excelled; such, though on a
first on one side and then on the other, as the hills close in upon.
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