Botanical lore
Yew typically is a dense evergreen tree, of no great height, but instead with
one or more massive trunks of very hard wood of dark, reddish bark and dark
green, needle-like leaves. These leaves are flattened and soft (unlike pine),
spirally placed on their shoots, which makes their scarlet berries (arils) stand
out easily in the autumn. Although the bark can peel off in strips,
creating patterns, yew is otherwise unlike the pine, in that it contains no resin and,
apart from the arils, all parts of the tree are highly poisonous.
However,
probably the most remarkable thing about the yew is that it is almost immortal.
With its very slow growth and extraordinary regenerative ability, yew is the
essence of longevity and resurrection. It can sprout again, even after losing
its branches. Whilst there are many trees that can produce new shoots after
being cut down (hazel), or being storm-damaged (willow), and whilst others have
root suckers (poplars) that are effective ways of reproducing themselves, none
have the third way of reproducing themselves, as yew does, through the layering
process - a highly unusual method in trees. Layering happens when a branch
touches the ground and begins to put down roots from this point of contact. In
time, if these roots grow sufficiently strong, then they are able to develop a
new tree, independent of the original source. Sometimes however, they may never
become entirely independent, but rather continue the growing process by
surrounding the initial mother tree with further trees - as at Ormiston (East
Lothian).
However, yew has yet a further surpise because, as old wood within the
trunk begins to rot naturally, a protective skin of new growth may start from
inside it, shielding the new growth and allowing the yew to resurrect iself from
the outside in. If the growth of the cambium layer keeps up with the rate of
decay (at an increase in girth of about one inch per twenty-five years, or for
solitary trees about one inch per year), the result is that a yew that appears
to be a hollow, decayed wreck is in reality simply self-regenerating. Out of
death comes resurrection. There is no biological reason for a yew tree to die -
it can virtually live forever.
Together with
boxwood, the wood of yew is the hardest of any tree in temperate zones, and very
enduring. And it is not simply for sacred reasons that yew is significant. Its
wood has been highly prized for practical reasons for centuries. A yew spear
found in Clacton, Essex, dates from about 150,000 years ago and is the world's
oldest man-made artifact. A yew bow, dated at 2,600 BC, was found in Somerset,
yet a hill walker at
Carrifran Wildwood
(Scottish Borders), discovered an older
one still in 1990. It was an abandoned hunting bow of 6,000 years old, found in
the peat bogs there, that preserved it. And there is the 5,300 year old Iceman
discovered on the Italian-Austrian border, who had a yew bow measuring six feet
although he himself was only 5'2" tall.
The reason yew is now found mainly in churchyards stems largely from historical
demand. Edward III, in 1369, made a law that every able-bodied man must be
practiced in archery. This entailed the plundering of the natural yew forests,
so much so that by 1492 England had to begin importing yew wood. Parliament then
passed a law that every trading ship unloading in an English harbour be taxed
four yew bows per ton of freight. The result of this was that nearly one million
yew bows came to England within the next half century from the continent and no
yew trees were left in Bavaria by 1568