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Tag Archives: yew tree

67/366 Wild word : dioecious

07 Saturday Mar 2020

Posted by sconzani in flowers, nature, spring, trees

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

#WildWords, Dioecious, male yew flowers, Taxus baccata, yew tree, Yew tree flowers

Dioecious: adjective; (of a plant or invertebrate animal) having the male and female reproductive organs in separate individuals (Oxford Dictionary).

200307 Yew male flowers (1)

My example today is the Yew tree (Taxus baccata), which has male and female flowers on separate trees. The male flowers are out now on a couple of trees in my local park – the female flowers may also be out but I didn’t look for them. The males are rather more showy and obvious, especially when they’re not soaking wet and their yellow pollen is blowing in the wind.

200307 Yew male flowers (2)

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345/365 Yew berries

11 Wednesday Dec 2019

Posted by sconzani in nature, trees, winter

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

berries for winter thrushes, winter berries, Yew, Yew arils, Yew berries, Yew fruit, Yew taxanes, yew tree

If the two large Yew trees I passed on my way to the library this morning were not growing on a main road, I’m sure their copious quantities of red berries would all have been scoffed by now by hungry winter thrushes.

191211 yew berries (1)

And if the berries last a while longer and the weather gets colder, they still might be, the birds forced to brave the passing traffic and pedestrians in search of nourishing food.

191211 yew berries (2)

The stones inside those juicy red berries (which are more correctly named arils) are poisonous to most creatures but they pass right through a bird’s digestive system so the bird remains unharmed.

191211 yew berries (3)

In fact, birds are essential to the growth and spread of Yew trees – their digestive system helps to weaken the seed’s tough coating, which enables it to sprout, and birds are the main dispersal agents for Yew seeds.

191211 yew berries (4)

We humans should never eat the seeds, however, as our stomach acids are strong enough to break down the seed coating, thereby releasing the taxanes (the poisonous alkaloids) into our bodies.

191211 yew berries (5)

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An ancient Yew

30 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by sconzani in nature, trees

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1600-year-old yew tree, ancient tree, Church of St Mary and St Peter in Wilmington, Wilmington yew tree, yew tree

The Church of St Mary and St Peter in Wilmington, and the adjacent priory to which it was once attached, date from about 1100AD. You might think that’s pretty old – and it is – but the Yew tree in the church grounds is even older – it is truly ancient.

180730 1600-yr-old yew (2)

Scientific testing has dated the Yew to around 1600 years old, meaning it must have been planted around 400AD. Its girth measures approximately 23 feet (7m), though the trunk has now split in two, and both its trunks and huge branches are supported by a variety of posts and chains. As I only had my zoom lens, I wasn’t able to get a good photo of the entire tree but I hope to revisit next time I’m in East Sussex. It was a truly humbling experience to see such an incredible tree.

180730 1600-yr-old yew (1)

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Flowering Yew trees

21 Monday Mar 2016

Posted by sconzani in nature, trees

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Tags

male yew flowers, male yew tree, yew tree

I bumped against a branch of a yew tree at the local cemetery today, then spent the next 10 minutes brushing myself down. Why? Because March and April are the months the male yew trees shed their yellow pollen. The yew is dioecious (‘di’ meaning two and ‘oikos’, from the Greek, meaning house), so the male and female flowers grow on separate trees. The male flowers, called cones, start as small green buds, then develop into yellowish-white globes that open to release their pollen from tiny florets.

160321 yews flowering 1160321 yews flowering 2

The yew tree is very long-lived – I have yet to visit the 4000-year-old tree that grows in a North Wales churchyard but it’s certainly on my list. In fact, the yew can frequently be seen in churchyards, though this association may have a pre-Christian origin – the evergreen yew provides dense shade so was often planted at pagan sites of worship, which were then taken over by the early Christians to build their churches. There is a more practical reason for yews in churchyards, too – the leaves are poisonous to the sheep that were used to ‘mow’ the grass around the graves so the trees survived the sheep’s eager grazing.

160321 yew tree heath

A yew tree that’s not in a churchyard!

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About me

sconzani

sconzani

I'm a writer and photographer; researcher and blogger; birder and nature lover; countryside rambler and city strider; volunteer and biodiversity recorder.

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