very small tree. Leaves very narrow, median nerve scarcely prominent, apex acute and gradually passing into the mucro. Buds small, with loosely imbricated, ovate, obtuse scales.
7. Var. globosa (Taxus globosa, Schl.[1]), Mexican Yew.—A small tree. Leaves variable, narrow, straight, acuminate, mucronate. Buds of numerous ovate, rounded, obtuse, keeled scales.
Distribution
1. Common Yew.—All authorities are agreed that the yew was formerly much more widely spread in Europe than is the case to-day, Conwentz[2] relies on three points to prove the ancient wider distribution:—(i) fossil remains; (2) prehistoric and historic antiquities; (3) place-names. He considers that nearly all the fossil remains of the Tertiary age, which have been described as species of Taxus, are not really yew. In more recent geographical strata, however, numerous fossil remains of yew have been found. Clement Reid[3] gives the following list of deposits in which yew occurs in England: —
Neolithic.—Common in peat below the sea-level in the Thames valley and Fenland; Portobello, near Edinburgh.
Interglacial.—Hoxne, Suffolk.
Preglacial (Cromer Forest-bed).—Mundesley, Bacton, Happisburgh (in Norfolk), Pakefield (in Suffolk).
Conwentz has found fossil remains in numerous localities in England and Ireland; but his promised paper on the subject has not yet been published. Guided by place-names in Germany, he dug up fossil yew in many localities in that country.
He[4] found under pure peat, 3 feet thick, in the Steller Moss not far from Hanover, some hundreds of stems of yews. He says that it is never found in the ramparts of prehistoric forts, but that it was often planted on fortifications by the knights of the Middle Ages.
He has prepared a list of some hundreds of English, Scottish, and especially Irish names of places taken from the yew. The Gaelic name for the yew is iubhar; and in Irish and Scottish place-names this generally appears Anglicised as ure, being sometimes corrupted into o or u simply. Youghal means yew-wood. Dromanure and Knockanure signify yew-hill. Glenure is the yew-glen. Gortinure and Mayo mean yew-field.
Conwentz examined prehistoric wooden boxes, buckets, and other vessels in the British Museum and in the Dublin Science and Art Museum, and identified the wood of some thirty articles as that of yew.
Yew is occasionally found in peat-mosses in Ireland, but is exceedingly rare as compared with pine and oak. Mr. R.D. Cole, who has kindly sent me a
