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The Yew

Quick Notes about the Yew Take me here now

Yew bark has a reddish brown colour
Yew bark has a reddish brown colour
The leaves are poisonous...
The leaves are poisonous...
...and so are the seeds
...and so are the seeds

The Facts

Tree Type: The English or common yew is an evergreen conifer with a red-toned scaly bark and poisonous leaves and seeds. The interior wood of the tree is red and white, and is excellent for woodturning. The trees can live for thousands of years but estimating the age is difficult as different parts of a yew may come from different periods.

Location: The yew is found across Europe, typically growing up to 20 metres tall (66ft). The massive Fortingall Yew in Scotland is thought to be Britain’s oldest tree, between 2,000 and 3,000 years old.

Ecology: The poisonous leaves protect the yew from herbivores. Birds eat the sweet berries (called arils) but the poisonous seeds inside are not digested and are spread through the birds’ excrement. Yew trees can survive deep splits in their wood, which is the secret to their long lives, as new sections can start growing from dying or diseased trunks.

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The Legends

Well made longbows use staves cut where the heartwood meets the sapwood, so the inner part of the bow is red and the outer part is white.

In the medieval period the huge demand for longbows caused a severe shortage of mature yew trees across much of Europe. This continued up until gunpowder weapons became widely available.

Yew trees are traditionally found in churchyards and cemeteries, possibly to keep grazing animals away or possibly because they seemed to have the secret of eternal life.

The Romans noted several cases where defeated warriors killed themselves by eating yew poison rather than surrender. Scientists estimate that 50g of yew leaves would be enough to kill an adult.

Make sure your volume is on: "Wood carvers love it..."

Show transcript

The yew tree – a very old tree – it is one of three native conifers to the UK, so that’s the yew, the juniper and the scots pine. Very famous for the longbow. It was the perfect wood for the longbow which won many wars, I believe.

We have identifiable features – its very brown, red-tinged bark to it, and if you actually cut it open the timber is red inside – well the heartwood is red and the sapwood is white, so you get this lovely contrast. Wood carvers love it, you can make some brilliant sculptures out of it.

In terms of leaf, it’s got little small leaflets of different varying sizes. That’s how you would tell the difference between a yew and maybe a fir tree, which looks very similar to some, but you would be able to tell by finding different sized leaflets on there.

It has small berries, red berries, called arils – which are poisonous. [They’re not! They’re lovely!] What, arils! They are poisonous. The seed inside is poisonous! [Oh yeah, you don’t eat the seed, but the berry’s not poisonous, I eat them] Oh do you? Right…OK. [They are sweet and gloopy]

Yew is poisonous, certainly the leaves, to livestock. Not all livestock, but mostly cows. Sheep do better but cows and horses certainly it can kill them if they eat enough of it.

It sends out lots of seed. In early spring you can walk up to the branches, give them a knock and you get plumes of pollen coming up, absolutely beautiful.
Yes, we’ve had reports at QE where they’ve got yew combes up in the valleys. You get reports that there’s a fire in the woods because there is that much pollen coming off of it!

They are also very long living, aren’t they? You find them in churchyards, and the diameter of the trunk is massive. And they think a lot of them predate the church, they are going back to a pagan area, where then the Christians have come in and built a church over the pagan area.

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