We have already mentioned that the Yew is a di[oe]cious tree--that is, one whose male and female blossoms are borne on separate trees--but the statement requires qualification to this extent, that occasionally a tree will be found bearing a branch or branches whose flowers are of the sex opposite to those covering the greater part of the tree. The male catkin is almost round, a quarter of an inch across, and contains about half a dozen yellow anthers, the base surrounded by dry overlapping scales. They may be found during February and March, in profusion on the underside of the boughs. The female flower is much smaller, and consists of a fleshy disk with a few scales at its base, and on this stands a single seed-egg. After fertilization of the seed-egg the disk develops into a red wax-like cup around the enlarging seed with its olive-green coat. The flesh of the cup is full of sweet mucilage, which makes the fruit acceptable to children, but the flavour is rather too mawkish to suit older tastes. Yew-berries are not poisonous, as sometimes supposed; neither is the contained kernel, which has a pleasant nutty flavour. Much has been said and written as to the toxic property of Yew-leaves, and it appears that though cattle and goats may browse upon them with impunity, horses and human beings pay the penalty of death for such indulgence. That word toxic, by the way, owes its significance to the Yew. The tree was named _taxus_ in Latin, from the Greek _toxon_ (a bow), because of the ancient repute of its wood for making that instrument. The tree was held to be poisonous, and so its name in the form of _toxicum_ came to designate all poisons.
There are some lines in _In Memoriam_ which many readers of Tennyson have found as obscure as the shade of the Yew where they were conceived. The poet is addressing a venerable churchyard Yew in these words:--
"Old warder of these buried bones, And answering now my random stroke With fruitful cloud and living smoke; Dark Yew, that graspest at the stones And dippest towards the dreamless dead, To thee, too, comes the golden hour, When flower is feeling after flower."
To any readers who have found a difficulty in understanding these lines, we would say: visit the Yew groves in February or March, when the male branches are thickly covered with their yellow flowers, and strike a branch with your stick. In response to the "random stroke" the pollen will fly off in a "fruitful cloud" or "living smoke," some of it to be caught by the minute female blossoms. This is the Yew-tree's "golden hour, when flower is feeling after flower."