Types of Foliage of Yews

Abstract

I HAVE recently examined the very old, I think the second largest, yew tree in England, in the churchyard at Stoke Gabriel in Devonshire. This tree shows the horizontally spreading type of growth characteristic of the English yew, Taxus baccata, though the drooping branches suggest the ‘weeping’ character found in some ash, birch and other trees. The arrangement of the twist of the leaves on the secondary branches, however, is not strictly parallel and horizontal, but more nearly resembles that seen in the Irish yew (T. fastigata).