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104 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
to him in Norway some at Tufte, on the Christiana fjord, which are 42-43 feet
high, with a girth of 3 feet 4 inches to 3 feet 9 inches. The thickest one was,
however, 4 feet 10 inches at 2 feet from the ground. He figures (p. 458, fig.
84) what is very rarely seen in England, a self-layered yew, and says that he
found in a wood at Hallangen a tree 24 feet in length with a diameter of only 6
inches.
In Sweden the yew grows as far north as lat. 63 10', and thrives so well that a
tree at Maltesholm, in Scania, is said to have had a diameter of 89 centimetres when
only 75 years old. It occurs on the Swedish Island of Aland (lat. 60 ), but only as a
small shrub.
Its northerly limit in Russia appears to be Esthonia, its eastern limit also passing
through that province, and continuing southwards through Livonia, Courland,
Lithuania, Volhynia, Podolia, and the Crimea. It occurs also in Denmark, 1 but only
in one place wild, viz., at Munkehjerg, the beautifully situated hotel near the town of
Veile, in Jutland. Formerly the yew was much more widely spread in Denmark,
but owing to the value of the wood the wild trees have been destroyed in most parts
of the country.
In Belgium, where the yew is often planted, its occurrence in the wild state has
been denied by some authors. Wildeman and Durand, 2 however, consider that it is
probably wild in the neighbourhood of Huy and in Hainault.
In France 3 it occurs chiefly in mountainous regions, as in the Vosges
(where it is rare), Jura, Cevennes, Pyrenees, and Corsica. In the Pyrenees it
ascends to 5400 feet, and, according to Bubani, 4 is always rare (due to destruction by
human agency), and only occurs on limestone and in cool and shaded situations. In
France generally, it is most common on precipices and rocky spots, and nearly always
on limestone. It never forms pure woods; but is, however, remarkably abundant
in the forest of Sainte Baume (Department of Var), where the oldest and largest
wild yew trees in France occur, some attaining a girth of i \\ feet. In Normandy,
according to Gadeau de Kerville,5 it is not indigenous, being probably introduced at a
very early period before the conquest of Gaul by Julius Csesar. It is usually planted
in churchyards and cemeteries as in England, and nowhere exceeds 19 metres (about
60 feet) in height. The largest in girth, about 33 feet, at 3 feet from the ground,
stands in the churchyard of Estry (Calvados). There are also two very fine trees
at the church of La Lande Patny (Orne). Several others are figured by this author,
of which the one at La Haye de Routot (Eure) is remarkable, on account of having
in the interior of its hollow trunk a chapel about 6 feet in diameter and 10 feet high,
which was built in 1806, and dedicated to Saint Anne des Ifs by the Bishop of
Evreux.
In Germany, according to Willkomm, 0 the yew is most abundant in Pomerania,
Hanover, and Thuringia, and he instances localities where it forms small pure
woods. In the Darmbach forest district in the Eisenach Oberland there are, in
1 Hansen, infottr. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 1892, p. 314.
3 Mathieu, Flore Forestiere, 509, 510 (1897).
0 Les vieux arbres de la Norniandie, iii. 359 (1895).
2 Prodrome de la Flore Beige, iii. 6 (1899).
4 Flora Pyrenaa, I . 46 (1897).
8 Forstliche Flora, 275 (1897).
Taxus
addition to many young plants, 311 yew trees of i foot or more in girth of stem.
On the Veronica mountain at Angelroda in Thuringia, there are about 150 yew trees,
of which the largest are possibly 600 years old. Apparently there were anciently
two zones of distribution of the yew in Central Europe a northern one which
extended from the Netherlands through the coast provinces of Germany to the
eastern shore of the Gulf of Riga, and a southern area comprising the mountainous
regions of the Vosges, Jura, Black Forest, the whole of the Alps to Croatia, and the
Carpathians. The yew also occurred in the hilly land of central Germany, where,
at the present time, according to Drude, 1 it is indifferent to soil, as it grows on
the muschelkalk near Gottingen, on the dolomite of Siintel in the Weser mountain
district, and on primitive rock on the southern slope of the Rachel (up to 3300 feet
altitude). On the dolomite it occurs as isolated trees, while in the ravines and rocky
parts of Siintel it forms thick underwood. In the Bavarian Alps it ascends to 3800
feet, not being met with below 1240 feet.
In Switzerland the yew ascends in the Alps to 4660 feet. The largest and
finest yew is at Geistler, near Burgdorf, at an elevation of 2400 feet above the sea.
This tree is well figured in Les Arbres de la Suisse, t. xii., and is said to be 50 feet
high by \ 2 feet in girth at 4 feet above the ground ; it divides into several stems at
about 10 feet up.
In Austria-Hungary the yew occurs in the Carpathians and the Alps, ascend
ing in Transylvania to 5400 feet; and it is reported to occur in Roumania and
Bulgaria.
The yew is generally distributed throughout the mountains of the Iberian
Peninsula. In Spain, according to Laguna, 2 it almost always occurs as isolated trees,
and is found in all the Cordilleras from the Sierra Nevada to the Pyrenees and the
mountains of Asturias, also in the Balearic Isles. He has only seen it forming pure
forest in the Sierra Mariola, near to Alcoy (Valencia). In the high part of that
chain on its northern slope there exist what are called the Teixeras de Agres, groups
of yews belonging to the town of Agres. Here, in 1870, there were still living some
hundreds of ancient yews, with some young trees.
Gadow 3 says, "There are numerous large and small trees forming a scattered
forest, between Riano and Cistierna at about 3600 feet elevation, the terrain
belonging to the reddish Permian rubble. The yew tree is widely distributed
throughout the Spanish mountains and on the Serra da Estrella (in Portugal),
but is rare everywhere. Most of the trees are solitary and old, with decaying tops.
Younger trees are ruthlessly destroyed by their branches being lopped off, to be
used in the cattlefolds partly instead of straw, and partly for repairing the fences
and roofs. The vernacular name is Tejo."
Willkomm 4 states that in the high mountains of Spain it occurs as isolated
stunted trees, and says that on the Sierra de la Nieve there was an old yew tree
which measured only 17 feet in height, although it had a girth of 17^ feet. In the
south of Spain it ascends to 6500 feet.
1 Hercynische Florenbeeirk, 1 14(1902).
3 Northern Spain, 387 (1897).
2 Flare Forestal Espaflola, i. 114(1883).
* Pflansenverbreittmgaitfder Ibirischeii Halbinsel, 2 51 (1896).
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