We look at a tree that is often seen as just ancient and venerable.
The typical place to find an old, wide, open-trunked yew (Taxus baccata) with expansive branches that drop red fruits all over the ground, is a churchyard. But there is a lot more to the yew than just an imposing presence among the gravestones. Trees generally can live 400–600 years, but exceptional examples have been claimed to have an age of up to 2000 years old.
English or European yew
The English yew is one of a family of species Taxus that exists in various parts of the world. The word ‘yew’ has ancient European origins and while ‘baccata’ is Latin for red berries, it is in fact an evergreen softwood. This tree has long been part of mythology and folklore and seems to echo an ancient time, especially as so many are found located in churchyards. Nowadays it is used for landscaping and ornamental gardens and can be clipped quite hard to create hedges and topiary features.
The seeds are poisonous and yet the yew has medical uses and the timber, although rather unpredictable in character or perhaps because of it, can be used in woodworking. The berries are in fact seed cones called arils, each holding a single poisonous seed which are dispersed by birds in their droppings after they have eaten the berries. The leaves are distinctively flat and pointed. Yews are generally either male or female but occasional yew trees do change sex in their lifetime.
Mythology
Yggdrasil, the World Tree in Viking mythology, was said to be a giant ash tree, but that claim is challenged by those who believe it is more rightly ascribed to the yew, especially as it is evergreen (non-deciduous), which has more ‘weight’ in mythology – the jury is out…
Did you know?
In ancient times Roman warriors were known to prefer taking their own lives by sword or yew berry, rather than be captured by their enemies.
Typical uses
Yew is a species with character. Chosen carefully to show both heartwood and sapwood, it can make very interesting and impossible-to-repeat patterns in veneer. It is appreciated as an excellent wood for the stringed lute. However, perhaps its biggest claim to fame is for war as fighting longbows. However, the wood has to be carefully chosen to include the right amount of heartwood and sapwood. As yew is often very twisted and knotty, much was imported as the homegrown variety was often rather brittle.
Food and medicine
Birds will eat the seed cones, but only a few species will eat the poisonous seeds. Yew trees are usually found within enclosed churchyard walls. This may have an added benefit of keeping them safely away from grazing livestock as the leaves are more toxic than the seeds. However, in the year 1021 Avicenna, a Persian polymath who wrote on philosophy and medicine, produced the very first herbal drug as a heart remedy. We had to wait until 1967 before researchers created an anti-hypertension drug from yew bark, while an early chemotherapy drug was also created from the leaves.
History
The history of yew is the history of early wars. An early arrowhead 250,000 years old was recovered at Clacton-On-Sea. Unlike ash, which made the best arrows but much more besides, yew really only suits bow making, where careful selection is essential to take advantage of its compression characteristics. In 1350 King Henry IV ordered his royal bowyer to enter private land to extract yew wood – and in the 15th century all shipping docking in port was required to bring in large amounts of yew bowstaves, such was the domestic shortage. Vast amounts of homegrown and imported timber were being used to make longbows for war right into the 18th century when guns started to take over. Forests everywhere suffered from the selective extraction of yew trees for this purpose.
Did you know
The presence of yew in churchyards has to do with churches being sited on former pagan sites as Christianity needed to persuade pagans to take up the newer religion. If these particular yew trees had been used for bow and arrow making as is often assumed, they would have been destroyed by felling.
Timber conversion
Yew can be awkward to mill due to its wayward trunk shape so it needs correct support. Cutting it open can reveal an irregular arrangement of sapwood, heartwood and elongated holes. Some trunks picked with care can produce good clear sections and attractive orangey veneers.
Choosing the timber
Yew is a take-or-leave it wood; if you don’t think creatively it can be difficult to work around its unusual colourful sapwood and heartwood characteristics. Firstly you will need rather more wood than expected and secondly, unless you are only using it as veneer, you need the wood to decide the form rather than the other way around. For this reason it suits irregular, natural waney-edged turnings very well.
Working characteristics
Yew works well but can be unreliable unless you have a good, solid, well-behaved trunk section. It doesn’t need too much finish applied to look its best and it isn’t appropriate to dye it or colour it down as it simply ruins its natural appeal. Yew is an evergreen softwood so it planes quite well.
Diseases
The yew is fairly indestructible but not totally immune. Honey fungus or overzealous pruning can ‘do for it’. Its real enemy is drowning; it does not care for perpetually wet or boggy ground and should not be planted in a trench. Other than that, it is a real survivor.
Fascinating facts
Clippings have been taken from ancient species in the UK and used to plant a mile long hedge at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, in order to preserve the DNA of Taxus baccata as it is under threat from felling due to use by pharmaceutical companies.
Make your own discoveries
Why not visit your nearest arboretum, stately home or urban park and see which unusual trees you can identify? Let us know if you find something unusual, send a photo and details and we may publish it!