Botanists all over the world surprise on the exact features of the yew, Europe’s so much historical species of tree. it's a ‘conifer’ with no resin or cones yet with juicy scarlet culmination that feed many birds and animals; it has foliage that's toxic to cattle yet which wild animals can devour; and even though it has a very low fee of photosynthesis, it could develop the place different tree seedlings and vegetation simply wither and die.
The yew’s decrease branches can root themselves, and it could actually additionally produce ‘interior roots’ within a hollowing trunk, renewing itself from the interior out. It used to be within the Palaeolithic period that people have been first struck by means of the yew’s regenerative powers and started to affiliate it with strategies of existence and demise, the afterlife and eternity. Yew bushes are available on the sacred websites of local american citizens and Buddhists, and Shinto shrines in Japan, in addition to in Christian churchyards, the place they grew to become an emblem of the Resurrection. through the center a long time, those churchyards supplied a secure haven for plenty of yew timber whereas these within the wild have been felled for the mass creation of the longbow, a robust weapon which enabled England to upward push and eventually laid the basis for the British Empire – on the rate of just about the whole yew inhabitants of Europe.
This complete, richly illustrated cultural and normal background comprises the most recent scientific discoveries approximately this extraordinary tree. The booklet will entice botanists and the final reader, in addition to an individual attracted to the heritage and symbolism of the ordinary world.