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114 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
14. Var. glauca.
Taxus baccata glauca, Carriere, Conif. 5 19 (1855).
A vigorous shrub, with leaves, which are shining and dark green on the upper
surface, and glaucous blue beneath.
E. Variety with differently colotired fruit.
15. \2X.fructu luteo.
Taxus baccata fructu luteo; Loudon, loc. cit. iv. 2068 (1838).
This variety only differs from the common yew in the aril of the fruit being
yellow. A tree of this kind was discovered about the year 1817 at Glasnevin, near
Dublin, growing on the property of the Bishop of Kildare.
Cuttings, however, were first distributed from a tree noticed in the grounds of
Clontarf Castle in 1838. This tree 1 was about 50 feet high in 1888. At Ardsallagh,
Co. Meath, the residence of Mrs. M'Cann, there is a tree 30 feet high and 7 feet in
girth, with yellow fruit, occurring in an avenue of old yews. There are several trees
of this kind at Powerscourt, 2 the best one of which was about 40 feet high in 1888.
Bushes raised from the seeds of these trees are reported to be bearing yellow berries,
from which it would appear that this variety comes true from seed. It is remarkable
that all the yellow-berried yews known, except the one mentioned above as collected
at Manipur, should occur in the neighbourhood of Dublin.
F. Variety with small leaves.
16. Var. adpressa.
Taxus baccata adpressa, Carriere, Rev. Horticole, 1 855, p. 93; Taxus adpressa, Gordon,
Pinetum, 3 10.
Taxus tardiva, Lawson, ex Henkcl and Hochstetter, Syn. Nadelh. 361.
Taxus sinensis tardiva, Knight, Syn. Conif. 5 2 (1850).
A large spreading shrub with densely crowded branchlets, bearing remarkably
small broad leaves, arranged on the shoots, as in the common yew. The leaves are
dark green above, \-\ inch long, elliptic linear in outline, with a rounded apex, from
which is given off a short mucro. The aril is broad and shallow, not covering the
seed, which is 3-angled and often depressed at the summit.
This is by far the most distinct of all the forms, geographical and horticultural,
not only in foliage, but also in fruit. It has been considered by many botanists
to be a distinct species, conjecturally of Japanese or Chinese origin. It is not
known in Japan, 8 except as a plant introduced from Europe; and there is no
reason for doubting the positive information 4 as to its origin given by Messrs. James
Dickson and Sons and by the late Mr. F. T. Dickson of Chester, though there is a
slight discrepancy in their two accounts. The latter states that it was found as a
seedling by his father amidst some yew seedlings about 1838, while the former give
1 Card. Chron. 1 888, iv. 576.
3 Matsumura, Shokubutsu Mei-I. 290 (1895).
2 Ibid. 707.
4 Card. Chron. 1 886, xxix. 221, 268.
Taxus 115
the date as 1828, and the locality as a bed of thorn seedlings in the Bache Nurseries,
Chester.
Only female plants of this variety are known, and it is reproduced by grafting.
Its flowers are doubtless fertilised by the pollen of common yew trees near at hand,
and as a rule it produces a great crop of berries. Messrs. Dickson and Sons have
frequently sown seeds which invariably produced the common yew.
Var. adpressa stricta is a form of this variety in which the branches are erect or
ascending. It is not known whether it originated as a seedling or as a sport fixed
by grafting. It was raised by Mr. Standish.
Var. adpressa aurea is a form with golden leaves.
Var. adpressa variegata is a form with the young shoots suffused with a silvery
yellow colour. This was exhibited at the Royal Horticultural Society on August 27,
1889.
There are fine examples of var. adpressa in Kew Gardens.
SEEDLING J
The two cotyledons, together with the seed-case which envelops them as a cap,
are carried above ground by the lengthening caulicle; and speedily casting off the
remains of the seed-case, act as if they were true leaves. They differ from the latter
in bearing stomata on the upper and not on the lower surface, and in having their
apices rounded and not acute. The young stem, angled by the decurrent bases of
the leaves, gives off at first three or four opposite pairs of true leaves, which are
succeeded in vigorous plants by a few alternate leaves, crowded at the summit
around a terminal bud, which in all cases closes the first season's growth, when the
young plant is i to 3 inches high. The caulicle, i to 2 inches in length, ends in
a strong tap-root, which descends several inches into the soil, and gives off a few
lateral fibres.
The growth of the seedling during the next four or five years is very slow, often
scarcely an inch annually. Afterwards the growth becomes more rapid.
SEXES, FLOWERS, FRUIT, BUDS
The yew is normally dioecious ; but exceptions occur, and in our account of the
cultivated varieties two or three instances of monoecious trees have been mentioned.
The celebrated yew at Buckland, 2 Kent, is monoecious. As a rule it is only a single
twig or branch which bears flowers of a different sex from those on the rest of the
tree. A yew 8 at Hohenheimer, near Stuttgart, is reported, however, to bear male
and female flowers irregularly over the whole tree, each kind, however, on separate
twigs. There is a specimen at Kew of a branch, sent in 1885 by the Rev. T. J. C.
Valpy of Elsing, Norfolk, which bears both male flowers and fruit.
1 Figured in Lubbock, Seedlings, ii. 553, fig. 677 (1892).
2 Card. Chron. 1 880, xiii. 556. There are specimens of this yew in the Kew herbarium.
3 Kirchner, loc. cit. 74.