(E. Bot. 1841. E.)—Gærtn. 136. 2, Calyx and fruit-Besl. Hort. Eyst. vi. 6. 1, on the authority of Gærtner, and Cavanill. Diss. v. 139. 2, on that of Gmelin.

Stem scarred, in the smaller plants like that of a cabbage, but taller; in the larger four to six or eight feet high, and as much as four inches in diameter. Leaves with seven, five, or three angles; soft as velvet. Flowers mostly in pairs. Calyx, outer much larger than the inner; segments broad, blunt, sometimes notched. Blossom purplish red, with dark blotches at the base of the petals. The cylinder of united filaments woolly at the base.

SEA TREE-MALLOW, or VELVET-LEAF. (Welsh: Mor Hoccysen. E.)
Sea shores. Hurst Castle, opposite the Isle of Wight. Rocks of Caldey
Island; Bass Island, near Edinburgh. Godrevy Island, near Portreath;
Mullion-gull rock in St. Ives' Bay, &c. Borlase. Ray. Inch Garvey and
Mykric-Inch, in the Firth of Forth. Sibbald. Cornwall and Devonshire.
Hudson. Chissel in Portland Island. Mr. Waring. (Kingsgate, near
Ramsgate; Steep Holmes Island, Severn Sea. Mr. W. Christy. On the
South Stack, near Holyhead. Welsh Bot. E.) At Teignmouth, near the
Den.
B. July-Oct.

TAX US. B. and F. flowers on different plants: Bloss. none:
Calyx a four or seven-leaved bud.

B. Anthers target-shaped, eight-cleft.

F. Style none: Seed one, surrounded at the basc by a pulpy receptacle; upper half naked.

T. BACCATA. Leaves solitary, strap-shaped, two-ranked, pointed, aggregate: receptacle of the stameniferous flowers somewhat globular.

(E. Bot. 746. E.)—Hunt. Evel. p. 378. i. p. 275. Ed. ii.-Blackw. 572— Kniph. 4-Cam. Epit. 840-Tourn. 362. 1—J. B. i. b. 241. 2—Dod. 859. 1-Lob. Obs. 637. 1, and Ic. ii. 232-Ger. Em. 1370-Ger. 1187. 2— Park. 1412-Gars. 580-Matth. 1099.

(Bark reddish, peeling off. Branches horizontal. Leaves very entire, dark green, smooth, shining, evergreen. Blossoms axillary, scattered, sessile, solitary; floral leaves tiled, membranous. Berries or Drupes very singular, proceeding from a receptacle which half covers and protects the seed, coming to perfection the second year; concave, pulpy, sweet, viscid, when ripe of a beautiful red and waxy appearance.

YEW TREE. (Irish: Whar. Welsh: Yuren; Pren-yw. Gaelic: An-ť iuchar. E.) Mountainous woods and hedges. Mountains of Westmoreland, Cumberland, and hills of Herefordshire. Hudson. Clefts of the rocks on Giggleswick Scar. On the rocks of Borrowdale, and on Conzic Scar, near Kendal, truly natural stations. Mr. Woodward. On the mountain called Yew-barrow, clearly indigenous, and in several other inaccessible places on Furness Fells. Mr. Atkinson. In Castle Eden Dean, Durham, undoubtedly wild. Mr. Robson. (Woods about Egleston. Rev. J. Harriman. Shores of the Wear below Hilton Castle; woods above Derwent Bridge, &c. Durham. Mr. Winch. In Anglesey. Welsh

(From To, a bow: it being long celebrated as the best material for making those formidable implements, E.)

Bot. Indigenous to some of the limestone eminences of Gloucestershire. One specimen in particular occurs in Stinchcombe wood, standing nearly on the verge of the lofty elevation overhanging the village. In the reign of Charles the First, this tree, still vigorous, afforded a three days' and nights' concealment to an ancestor of the writer, during the plunder and conflagration of Melksham's Court, his residence. Mr. Oade Roberts. Many primeval Yew trees are scattered over the Clee hills, Salop, and the cliffs of Cheddar, Somerset. E.) T. March-April.*

* This tree grows best in a moist loamy soil. On bogs or dry mountains it languishes. It bears transplanting even when old. It is often planted to make hedges; and as these hedges admit of clipping, they form excellent screens to keep off the cold winds from tender plants. (Its tonsile properties, for geometrical gardening, have been too generally rendered available for uncouth shapes. A most favorable specimen of this obsolete art is still preserved in the pleasure-grounds of Gormanston Castle, Meath. This very antique Yew garden was originally intended to represent the cloisters of a monastery. The outer walls, and open arches towards the centre being of clipt Yew, and the space, so surrounded, answering to the quadrangle, laid out as a flower-garden. But all that is formal and unnatural being obnoxious to genuine taste, however such ingenious mutilations may excite the admiration of the vulgar, the more refined observer will rather exclaim,

"Doth a garden trimm'd and tortured by

Hands that can dextrous wield the lopping knife
Show lov'lier than nature's free wild grounds?"

Of the Yew there is a variety, with short leaves; also one with striped leaves, valued among the variegated tribes. The Irish Yew, of the nurseries, is still more peculiar, never branching out or spreading, but aspiring like a cypress, with leaves larger, somewhat recurved, the plant bearing berries when only eighteen inches high. E.) The wood is hard, smooth, and beautifully veined with red. It is converted into bows, axle-trees, spoons, cups, cogs for mill-wheels, and flood-gates for fish ponds, which hardly ever decay, (bedsteads said to deter bugs; and gate posts lasting as those of iron. E.) The berries are sweet and viscid. Children often eat them in large quantities without inconvenience. Swine and field-fares are fond of them, The fresh leaves are fatal to the human species. Three children were killed by a spoonful of the green leaves. They died without agony, or any of the usual symptoms of the vegetable poisons. The same quantity of the dried leaves had been given the day before without any effect. Percival's Essays, iii. Sheep and goats cat it; horses and cows refuse it. Linn. But there are instances of both having been killed by eating it, branches having been found in their stomachs; Gent. Mag. Ivi. 941; and sheep are said to have been killed by browsing upon the bark. I suspect that the loppings in a half dried state are most detrimental to cattle. (In August, 1822, E. Nicholls, Esq. of Ringmer, Sussex, turned a horse into a field in which were some sprigs of Yew tree, which had been clipped off in the course of the day. The horse eat of these, afterwards drank at a pond, and quickly died. In January, 1823, in a deep snow, Messrs. Woodward, of Chelmsford, in Kent, tarned out three healthy horses into a small close, adjoining which was a Yew tree. In three hours they were found dead, with Yew in their stomachs. It is believed to be equally fatal to sheep. That the very shade of the Yew tree (“Taxique nocentes: " Virg.) should prove mortiferous, may probably be deemed a mere fable, though currently related by the ancients, whence it is inferred that some of those writers at least described a different tree. Evelyn states, "Notwithstanding what Pliny reports concerning its shade, (vid. Martyn's Virgil, n. 166;) the stories of the air about Thasius; the fate of Cantivulcus, mentioned by Cæsar, and the ill character which the fruit has vulgarly obtained in France, Spain, and Arcadia, I shall venture to observe

"Quam multa arboribus tribuuntur crimina falso?"

Theophrastus was, however, so far correct, "Si jumenta folia comederint, emoriuntur." Four ounces of sweet oil, taken at two doses, in warm ale, and after that a pint of salt and water, have been found to relieve cattle thus poisoned. E.)-Several mountainous places are named in the Gent. Mag. 1793, p. 101, in which it doubtless grows wild. (It is supposed, also, in former ages, to have prevailed in Ireland as an aboriginal, by the

PINUS.* B. and F. flowers on the same plant: Bloss. none. B. Calyx scales forming a bud, expanding: Anthers naked, sessile, adhering to the scales.

numbers discovered in a fossil state; though at present there are said to be none but planted Yews in that country. E.) Those trees situated in the accessible parts of the mountains are generally cut down and brought to market for chairs and steps of ladders, for which use their durability renders them valuable, (while others, unassailable by man, for a succession of ages, bid defiance to

"The raging tempests and the mountains' roar,
Which bind them to their native hills the more.'

Strutt, in 'Sylva Britannica,' gives some admirable representations of these interesting trees as the very ancient ones at Fountain's Abbey, Yorkshire, supposed to have existed anterior to the foundation of the monastery, or at least co-eval with that date (1128.) Of six remaining, one measures 26 feet in girt at 3 feet from the ground: and the Fortingal Yew, in the church yard, amid the Grampian mountains, though now disjoined by the lapse of many centuries, when entire, according to Pennant, was 56 feet in circumference. At Martley, Worcestershire, grows one twelve yards round; and an extraordinary tree of the same kind may yet be seen in the palace garden at Richmond, planted three days before the birth of Queen Elizabeth. But still more interesting is the justly celebrated Yew tree at Ankerwyke near Staines, (fifty feet high, and in girt three feet above the ground twenty seven feet), to which, and the current tradition connected therewith, as standing in the vicinity of Runnymede, Fitzgerald thus alludes:

"Here patriot barons might have musing stood,
And plann'd the charter for their country's good:

Here, too, the tyrant Harry felt love's flame,
And, sighing, breath'd his Anna Boleyn's name;
Beneath the shelter of this Yew tree's shade,
The royal lover woo'd the ill-starr'd maid."

But for an unrivalled poetical description of extraordinary Yew trees we are indebted to the muse of Wordsworth.

"There is a Yew tree, pride of Lorton Vale,
Which to this day stands single in the midst
Of its own darkness, as it stood of yore,

Nor loth to furnish weapons in the hands

Of Umphraville or Percy, ere they marched

To Scotland's heaths, or those that crossed the sea,

And drew their sounding bows at Azincour;

Perhaps at earlier Cressy, or Poictiers.

Of vast circumference, and gloom profound,
This solitary tree! a living thing

Produced too slowly ever to decay;

Of form and aspect too magnificent

To be destroyed.-But worthier still of note

(Etymologists often fail to elucidate their subject, by limiting their researches to the more classical languages, and deriving their most plausible conjectures from such a source. In reference to the present name, is usually given the Greek synonym 705, or Pitchtree; but De Theis, taking a wider range, deduces Pinus far more satisfactorily from the Celtic, and shews it to exist variously modified in all the dialects of that ancient language, its basis being pin or pen, a mountain or rock; whence, among numerous exemplifications, we have the Apennines, the Pennine Alps, and in Portugal the Penha convent situated on the rocky summit of a mountain. The Gaelic Pinwidden, like the German Pynbaum, means precisely a mountain tree, than which nothing can be more appropriate. E.)

F. Calyx scales forming a cone, two flowers in each scale: Pistil one: Nut of one cell, without valves, bordered with a membrane.

Are those fraternal four of Borrowdale,
Joined in one solemn and capacious grove;

Huge trunks! and each particular trunk a growth
Of intertwisted fibres serpentine,

Upcoiling, and inveterately convolved:

Nor uninformed with phantasy, and looks
That threaten the profane; a pillared shade,
Upon whose grassless floor of red-brown hue,
By sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged
Perennially;-beneath whose sable roof
Of boughs, as if for festal purpose, decked
With unrejoicing berries, ghostly shapes
May meet at noontide: Fear, and trembling hope,
Silence, and foresight-death the skeleton,
And time the shadow, there to celebrate,

As in a natural temple, scatter'd o'er
With altars undisturb'd of mossy stone,
United worship; or in mute repose

To lie, and listen to the mountain-flood

Murmuring from Glenamara's inmost cave."

The cause of the general introduction of the Yew tree into cemeteries has been differently surmised. The following explanation seems sufficiently probable. The sacred, funeral Yew, well calculated to give solemnity to the village church-yard, and from its unchanging foliage and enduring nature, fit emblem of immortality, has ever been associated with religious observances. When anciently it was the custom, as it still is in Catholic countries, to carry palms on Palm-Sunday, the Yew was substituted on such occasions for the palm. Two or three trees, the usual number growing in church-yards, were enough for such purposes. Of these, one at least was more especially consecrated, and was then estimated at twenty times the value of less hallowed trees of its own kind, and double that of the finest oak, as appears from ancient record. An extract from Caxton's directions for keeping Feasts all the year, printed in 1483, may be considered decisive on this subject. In the lecture for Palm-Sunday, the writer, after giving the scripture account of our Saviour's triumphant entrance into Jerusalem, proceeds thus: " Wherefore holy chirche this day makyth solemne processyon, in mynd of the processyon that Cryst made this day. But for encheson that we have non olyve that berith grene leef, algate therefore we take Ewe instede of palme and olyve, and beren about in processyon, and so is thys day called Palme Sunday." In confirmation, we may add, that the Yews in the church-yards of East Kent are at this day called palms. Small branches were likewise wont to be borne at funeral solemnities, and cast into the grave. It is remarkable that bodies interred beneath the shade of trees, return to their pristine dust in a very few years, perhaps one third less time than when deposited in the open ground. This rapid decay may be in some degree occasioned by the perpetual percolation of concentrated moisture, and the comparative absence of sun and air. That our mortal remains should be laid to rest beneath such natural canopy, seems almost an inherent propensity in human nature.

"This branch of Yew, this branch of Yew!

How many a fond and tearful eye

Hath hither turned its pensive view,

And through this dark leaf sought the sky.

How many a light and beauteous form,
Committed to its guardian trust,

Safe housed from life's tumultuous storm,
Hath gently melted into dust;
While mindful love, would long renew
Its grief, beneath this branch of Yew.

P. SYLVESTRIS. Leaves in pairs, rigid: cones egg-conical, mostly in pairs, as long as the leaves: scales oblong, blunt.

More meet to deck the lowly grave

These living plumes by nature spread,
Than sable tufts that proudly wave
Their pompous honours o'er the dead.
The oak hath doffed his leafy pride,

As frowning winter passed him by ;
The grass hath shrunk, the flowers have died,
Beneath bright summer's burning sky;
But all to love and sorrow true
Unblenching waved this funeral Year.
I had not from the mounds below
Thus born their beauteous canopy,
But life has many a secret throe,

And sad remembrance many a sigh;
And oh! tis sweet in hours of toil,

Amid the throb of struggling grief,
To rest the aching eye awhile

Upon this dark and feathery leaf;
And think how softly falls the dew
On peaceful graves beneath the Yew.
This branch of Yew! its tints deride

The sparkling glow of early bloom;
It tells of youth and martial pride

Commingling with the dreary tomb;
It throws upon earth's pageantry
A shadow deep as closing night,
And sweetly lures the awe-struck eye
To rays of life and fields of light;
And stars of promise burst to view,

Through thy dark foliage, mournful Yew!"

A statute of Edward I. (1307), contains the following passage; "Ne Rector arbores in cemetrio prosternat : " which must have referred chiefly to Yew trees, thus protected, partly to prevent their injuring cattle, (as unfit for general exposure from their noxious qualities), but chiefly with the intentions above specified; and possibly, (though by no means a primary consideration as sometimes imagined), as ensuring an essential supply to the archer in time of need. The use of Yew for this latter purpose is of very ancient date:

"Ityræos Taxi torquentur in arcus." Virg. "The sacred Yew, so fear'd in war."

And Homer describes the inhabitants of Crete, as

Cydoniaus, dreadful with the bended Yew."

But no nation was more terrible by the aid of this weapon, than our athletic ancestors, "Who drew,

And again,

And almost join'd, the horns of the tough Yew;"

"The Eugh obedient to the bender's will." Spenser. Indeed so much strength was requisite in drawing these long bows, that the stout yeomen of the olden time were wont to boast that none but an Englishman could bend them. At that early period, before the invention of gunpowder, it is obvious the church-yards did not supply our warriors with the necessary materials, but that the timber was of foreign growth. In the reign of Elizabeth, a how of the best foreign Yew was sold for 63. 8d., while the price of one made of English Yew was only two shillings. In 12 Edward IV. it was ordained that every foreign merchant who should convey any goods from any country from which bow-staves had formerly been brought to this country, shou'd for every ton of goods bring four bow-stares. A similar law was framed in the time of Richard III. In those iron ages the bow triumphed over the spear, the shield, and the sword.

VOL. III.