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Books > Sport & Leisure > Natural history, country life & pets > Plant life: general
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Yew - A History (Paperback)
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Yew - A History (Paperback)
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The yew is one of the most fascinating and versatile life forms on
Earth, botanically rich and intriguing, and culturally almost
without comparison. In history, mythology, religion, folklore,
medicine and warfare, this tree bears timeless witness to a deep
relationship with mankind. Yew was the wood chosen to make some of
mankind's oldest artefacts: spears, bows and musical instruments.
These include items like the prehistoric spear found near Clacton,
the 2,000-year-old wooden pipes from Greystones, County Wicklow
and, of course, the famous medieval English longbow. In modern
medicine, too, yew has proved a boon. Since 1992 taxol/paclitaxel
has helped revolutionise the treatment of certain types of cancer.
In botanical terms, yew is a mass of contradictions. It is a
conifer which bears scarlet 'berries' with sweet juicy pulp instead
of cones. It is highly poisonous in all its parts except the red
fruit pulp, and yet both wild and domesticated animals feed upon
it. It can live for thousands of years with the potential to renew
itself. A new tree from an interior root can grow slowly within the
hollow trunk of an ancient yew and centuries later 'take over' the
older tree. When it come to habitat, the yew tree is nothing if not
versatile. It can grown on different continents at a wide range of
altitudes: from rainy Edinburgh to sultry Istanbul, from Canada to
Mexico, Scandinavia to North Africa and Sumatra, Japan and the
Himalayas. Fred Hageneder's fascinating book is the first to cover
all aspects of the botany as well as the cultural history and
mythology of the genus Taxus. This is the remarkable story of the
oldest living things in Europe.
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