Yew

The red berry-like fruits of the Yew are the only non-poisonous part of the tree, and are eaten by birds and small mammals.

Species introduction

At a glance
Latin name: 
Taxus baccata
Family: 
Yews
Family Latin name: 
TAXACEAE
Category: 
Non-flowering Plants
Vernacular names: 

Tree of death, Tree of the dead

Species description

Species description

This long-lived tree has short, flat needles. The red berry-like fruits are the only non-poisonous part of the tree, and are eaten by birds and small mammals. Yew is too poisonous to be used medicinally, but Taxol, a chemical found in yew, is being investigated as an anti-cancer drug. Yew wood was irreplaceable for the manufacture of longbows; the word yewman originally meant an archer (yeoman). The largest yew wood in Europe is north of Chichester, at Kingley Vale near Lavant, and the oldest yew in England is thought to be the one in the churchyard at Coldwaltham, West Sussex. For a softwood the yew is unusually slow growing. The wooden nails used by the Vikings to secure the timber in their clinker-built longships were of yew, as were barrel hoops. The bows of the backs and arms of Windsor chairs are still made from this wood. 

Yews may have been planted in churchyards, especially at entrances, to keep cattle out, because all parts of a yew are poisonous, and grass does not grow under its dense canopy. Another putative explanation for the presence of yew trees in churchyards relates to archery. For a period after 1252, by law, men had to practise their longbow skills (using bows made from the strong but flexible wood provided by yews). If they helped to maintain a churchyard, in return they were often entitled to take wood from any yews planted there, without needing to buy the wood themselves. In some quarters, this view has been discounted. Bowstaves needed to be made from the trunk of a yew tree, not its branches. Records also show that yew bowstaves were imported from Europe, sometimes in considerable quantity.

The esteemed writer and broadcaster Richard Mabey discusses some of these theories in an episode of Mabey in the Wild on Yew, Sycamore and Ash on BBC Radio 4. He also explains how the extraordinary age of many Yew trees suggests that many may not have been planted in churchyards but that, instead, many churches may have been built near existing yews. Thus, they are not so much trees that mark mortality but rather immortality, and it is this that more fully explains the long relationship between yew trees and churchyards and cemeteries.

One of the yews in the cemetery (in the east-central section) was planted to mark the millennium. The other (against the south wall) has an unknown history, but is certain to be the oldest living thing there, pre-dating the creation of the cemetery. Its girth was measured in March 2020 as being 3.43 metres, which suggests its age might be in excess of 200 years.

Species photographs

Larger photograph(s) (click to magnify)
The red berry-like fruits of the Yew are the only non-poisonous part of the tree, and are eaten by birds and small mammals.
Yes is a long-lived tree that has short, flat needles for leaves.
Yew trees were planted in churchyards, especially at entrances, to keep cattle out.
Yes is a long-lived tree that has short, flat needles for leaves.
Yes is a long-lived tree that has short, flat needles for leaves.

Details

Species family information

The yew family is a small evergreen coniferous family of about 30 species worldwide, with spirally arranged leaves. Yew trees are either male or female. The male cones shed pollen in early Spring, and the female 'cones' are reduced to single seeds covered by a fleshy protective berry called an aril. 

Conifers (which includes yews) are classed as non-flowering plants because seeds are borne externally on the upper surface of the scales of female cones.

Category information

Nucleic multicellular photosynthetic organisms lived in freshwater communities on land as long ago as a thousand million years, and their terrestrial descendants are known from the late PreCambrian 850 million years ago. Embryophyte land plants are known from the mid Ordovician, and land plant structures such as roots and leaves are recognisable in mid Devonian fossils. Seeds seem to have evolved by the late Devonian.

The earliest known plant group is the Archaeplastida, which were autotrophic. Listing just the surviving descendants, which evolved in turn, we have the Red Algae, the Chlorophyte Green Algae, the Charophyte Green Algae, and then the Embryophyta or land plants. The earliest embryophytes were the Liverworts, followed by the Hornworts, and the Mosses. Then we have the Vascular Plants, the Lycophytes and Ferns, followed by the Spermatophytes or seed plants, of which the non-flowering types are the Gnetophytes, Conifers, Ginkgos, and Cycads. The last four are also referred to as Gymnosperms, because their seeds are unprotected by an ovary or fruit. The seeds develop either on the surface of scales or leaves, which are often modified to form cones, or are solitary as in the yew and ginkgo. This completes the evolutionary order of the non-flowering plants. The final group to evolve was the Magnoliophyta (Angiosperms) or flowering plants, whose seeds and ovules are enclosed within an ovary or fruit, and which are on a separate list.