Taxus

The yew is the longest-lived of all European conifers. It can achieve heights of 15-20m and the oldest individuals are estimated to be 1200-1500 years old. Yew trees have been highly respected and valued from pre-historic times, and the species is also regarded as a symbol of death, and of immortality. The wood itself, tough and durable, has been used in making lutes, and especially in the manufacture of longbows and crossbows. The war-filled history of Europe, with its demand for these weapons, lead to the almost total destruction of yew stands.

The yew genus (Taxus) includes 8 species which are very similar in habit and in characteristics. They are all poisonous, slow-growing evergreen shrubs or trees which live long. They are all dioecious, i.e. the male plants produce pollen, while the separate female plants develop red berry-like cones in autumn, which are in fact naked seeds almost totally enclosed in a fleshy red aril.

The Pacific yew is native to the Pacific coast of North America, as the name implies. It is a slow-growing shrub or small tree of rather irregular habit. Like the other yews, it is long-lived and can live 400 years. However, it gradually rots and becomes hollow, and the exact age of old specimens is impossible to estimate accurately.

The Wellesley yew is a hybrid between the common or English yew (T. baccata) and the Japanese yew (T. cuspidata). The European yew is extremely popular in Europe but has shown itself less than completely hardy in North America. The hardier Japanese yew was discovered in the 1850s in the Far East and the hybrid was developed in the early 1900s by several nurseries in Massachusetts, USA.