Britannia's city of Justice. It blends into the west edge of the Great Forest. It is home to the royal court house and Empath Abbey. The Druids make their home here.

Yew trees became the traditional tree in English Churchyards simply because Palm trees, originally held to be sacred and a symbol of rebirth from death, could not grow in English climate.

i have very fond memories of yew trees from when i was very young. you see, there are two nice american yew bushes growing at my house. and as good old webby says, yews form berries instead of cones like other evergreens. it was always a wonderous time of year when the berries began to ripen.

that meant it was time for my "artisitic ability" to take flight. for you see, ripe yew berries--and the semi-ripe ones--are deeply colored, at the darkest a near-black shade of purple. and they were *different colors* during the ripening process! i had a pale yellow, various pink and red shades, and finally the purples. during peak season, the bush had all the colors at once.

the chalk was always put away, then. forget chalk! for a few weeks, all sidewalks near my house were adorned with yew juice "paintings". it was a neighborhood event and all the kids came over for art time.

one of my overall fondest childhood memories, and just a heck of a lot of fun, to boot.

The yew, aka Taxus spp, is a tree\shrub that grows predominatly in wet, temperate climates.

The most noticable thing about the yew is that it is one of the few gymnosperms that has berries, or at least what appears to be berries. Much like the alder, which has fruit that appears to be cones, the yew has cones that appear to be berries. They are little fleshy growths that cover most of the seed.

Other then the red berry like cones, Yews can be recognized by there dark green needles and their size, which is usually 2 to 5 meters, and with multiple stems.

All parts of the yew are said to be extremly posionous, and as little as 2 or 3 needles is enough to kill a child. I myself have eaten that much, but being about 70 kilos, I was unharmed. The specific poison in yew is a glycoside that blocks the calcium channels in muscle tissue. In heart tissue, this means the heart doesn't beat. As you would guess, it is a very hard poison to deal with, and there is no antidote.

In addition, one species of yew, the Pacific Yew, produces a chemical called Taxol, which can be used to treat breast cancer. However, this takes about 5 tons of yew bark to make a dose of it.

The greatest traditional use of the wood of the yew was as the stock of a bow due to its strength and flexibility of the wood. In addition, a single stem of a yew tree was about the right size and width for a bow stock. Since the era of polymers etc, and the decline of the bow and arrow in warfare, this use has probably been greatly curtailed.

There is various mythological associations with the yew tree, probably due to the fact that it is poisonous and had bright red berries.

European yew - Taxus baccata - also known as the common yew

One of the 3 native evergreens of Great Britain, the yew is a type of conifer, although it bears red 'berries', or arils, instead of cones. It typically grows to about 15 - 28 m high, and can have a huge girth. It is widespread throughout Europe, North Africa and Asia. The yew is often found in dense woodland on chalk or limestone soils but it is also in common usage as a garden shrub. In fact it lends itself well to topiary and is the shrub of choice in mazes in the gardens of stately homes.

The wood of the yew tree is very durable and beautiful, being very pale with small knots, dark streaks and spots (called pepper). It is prized as a veneer and for use in making tool handles and furniture, but it is probably most famous for being used to make longbows. Indeed it has been suggested that if it were not for the invention of firearms the yew could well be now extinct!

Trivia

Taxol and Taxotere are strong anti-cancer drugs. They start life as chemicals extracted from the bark of the Pacific yew and the European yew.

All parts of the tree, except the fleshy aril, are poisonous. Shakespeare made reference to this in a number of plays including Macbeth where it was used by the witches. Pliny the Elder noted that people died after drinking wine that had been casked in yew barrels.

Yew trees are often found growing in cemeteries because they are said to symbolise immortality. This is hardly surprising since the yew is one of the oldest types of tree in the world. There is a yew in Farringdon, Hampshire, which has a girth of 30 feet and is estimated to be 3000 years old, and others in Llangenyw, Discoed and Fortingale are perhaps 5000 years old. Even when the central trunk of the yew dies, it throws up new shoots from the roots in an ever expanding circle - another symbol of life-everlasting.

Since ancient times the yew was thought to be the protector of the dead and a guardian against evil spirits. It was often used in pagan rituals. Since many churches were built on the remains of pagan sites this might also explain their presence in churchyards.

The oldest known piece of wood is a spear made of yew. It is 250,000 years old and was found at Clacton in Essex.

The yew tree is the symbolic tree of the Fraser clan in Scotland. They believed it brought them good luck and warded off evil spirits.

In some parts it is known as 'The tree that kills twice' due to the poisonous nature, and the fact that bows were made from its wood. - thanks to stupot for this snippet

Respected English botanist and TV personality David Bellamy asked that every English parish should plant a yew tree, preferably in a churchyard, to commemorate the Millennium.

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http://www.mystical-www.co.uk/treesy.htm#YEW
http://www.british-trees.com/guide/home.htm
http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3553/cy_intro.html

Yew (?), v. i.

See Yaw.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Yew, n. [OE. ew, AS. eow, iw, eoh; akin to D. ijf, OHG. iwa, iha, G. eibe, Icel. r; cf. Ir. iubhar, Gael. iubhar, iughar, W. yw, ywen, Lith. jeva the black alder tree.]

1. Bot.

An evergreen tree (Taxus baccata) of Europe, allied to the pines, but having a peculiar berrylike fruit instead of a cone. It frequently grows in British churchyards.

2.

The wood of the yew. It is light red in color, compact, fine-grained, and very elastic. It is preferred to all other kinds of wood for bows and whipstocks, the best for these purposes coming from Spain.

⇒ The American yew (Taxus baccata, var. Canadensis) is a low and straggling or prostrate bush, never forming an erect trunk. The California yew (Taxus brevifolia) is a good-sized tree, and its wood is used for bows, spear handles, paddles, and other similar implements. Another yew is found in Florida, and there are species in Japan and the Himalayas.

3.

A bow for shooting, made of the yew.

 

© Webster 1913.

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Yew (&umac;), a.

Of or pertaining to yew trees; made of the wood of a yew tree; as, a yew whipstock.

 

© Webster 1913.