British Native Trees
and Shrubs

Yew Taxus baccata (Taxaceae)

Long since, and in some quiet churchyard laid –
Some country-nook, where o’er thy unknown grave
Tall grasses and white flowering nettles wave,
Under a dark, red-fruited yew-tree’s shade.

The Scholar Gypsy
Matthew Arnold [1822-88]

The majestic, slow-growing, very long-lived yew with its dense, intensely dark-green foliage is one of Britain’s three native evergreen conifers, the others being Scots pine and juniper. It can be low and bushy or a tree up to 20 m with a rounded crown and often a massive, fluted trunk with soft, flaking, reddish-brown bark which becomes greyer and deeply furrowed with age. Tough green shoots on the many branches are spirally set with needles, each up to 2.5 cm long, glossy dark-green above, paler below. The foliage is poisonous to livestock. Male and female flowers, which open in February and March, are usually borne on separate trees but can occur on the same tree. Both appear from the leaf axils on the undersides of twigs, the small, round, yellow male flowers releasing clouds of pollen and the tiny, acorn-like, yellowish-green females swelling to form the fruit. The hard, poisonous, olive-green seed is surrounded, apart from a hole at the top, by a non-poisonous fleshy aril which becomes sweet and pinkish-red in August and September.

Yew is widespread in woodland and scrub on chalk and limestone in the south and west of England but is absent from East Anglia and the east Midlands. It ascends to 450m in the Lake District.

It makes the most handsome of garden hedges, dense and smart throughout the year, its very dark-green a perfect foil for the bright colours of herbaceous plants. A yew hedge can be trimmed in summer or early autumn, and old, overgrown hedges will regenerate well if cut back hard in spring. In a congenial garden site it can put on growth faster than its reputation suggests. Yew is also a fine specimen tree for the larger garden. It grows in sun or deep shade and in any well-drained soil from acid to alkaline, but it does like some moisture in the ground in winter. It is resistant to pollution. Yew can be easily propagated from cuttings taken with a heel in autumn and grown in a cold frame, taking care not to damage the brittle roots when handling. Growing from cuttings also ensures both male and female progeny. The plant can also be raised from ripe seeds grown in containers and planted out in nursery beds in their second season. They can take up to two years to germinate. Line out and grow for a further two years before planting permanently in autumn or spring.

The durable, close-grained, deep golden or orange-brown wood is used to make fine furniture, sculpture and turned articles such as bowls.

Page last updated - January 10, 2002  

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