Taxus baccata, L.

Yew. Middle and South Europe and Asia, at 1000 to 4000 feet elevation. Generally a shrub, sometimes a tree 40 feet high, which furnishes a yellow or brown wood, exceedingly tough, elastic and durable, and much esteemed by turners. The tree is of very slow growth, and reaches a great age, perhaps several thousand years; some ancient ones are known with a stem of fifty feet in girth.