This amazing plant belongs to a dying evergreen conifers.Yew berry very durable plant, some specimens live for several thousand years.Mainly has the form of a tree, but it happens and shrubs.After the withdrawal of the glaciers during the Great glaciation were a few islands of this ancient plant in North Africa, Asia, Western Europe.There are sometimes those plants in the forests on the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains, the Carpathians and the southern Crimea.On the Russian expanses of yew berry growing from Moscow to Kaliningrad, not rising to the north of the latitude of those cities.
appearance and habitat
Tree in Europe rarely reaches a height of 17 m, in the Caucasus, growing up to 27 meters.It has a very dense spreading crown.Trunk is covered with a ribbed plate bark reddish-gray color.The needles are flat, green: dark and shiny on top and bottom yellow and matte.Tiss very shadow-it can grow even in such conditions where other conifers are dying.It needs moist and nutritious soil.It grows slowly, one of the legends in the mountains of Adjara there yew, whose age is 4000 years.Height trunk longevity of about 30 meters and the diameter - more than one and a half meters.
Modest Beauty
Tiss berry is especially beautiful in autumn when its branches, covered with dark green needles, there are small seeds in the brightly colored fleshy shell, resembling tiny ruby lanterns.Yew wood is reddish-brown color and beautiful texture for that is very much appreciated in the production of furniture, expensive handicrafts and wooden elements of certain musical instruments.
Ruggedness
Besides the beauty, yew wood has another unusual feature - it almost does not rot.This is its remarkable property was known to people in the Stone Age.Proof of this is the discovery of one of the Swiss Lakes, from the bottom of one of them raised the stone axes with yew handle.Yew berry used in the construction of buildings, made from its wood sculptures and monuments to the gods and pharaohs.By the way, the mummy of Tutankhamun was in three sarcophagi, one of them was made of yew.In the Middle Ages, when the rapidly began to build wooden ships for distant voyages, because solid wood began his mass destruction.Today, it is listed in the Red Book, but all the same, this plant is increasingly rare.
tree death
In Egypt and ancient Greece yew berry planted near the graves in cemeteries, were its branches as a sign of mourning for the dead.All parts of the tree, except for pulp shishkoyagody, poisonous.Quite often it was used to poison the person it was enough to submit the wine in the cup of the yew.Or drink prepared from the needles of the tree - the older it is, the more poisonous.
Tiss berry Fastigiata
This form of decorative plant with a height of ten years old is only 1.5 meters.It has a slender columnar crown, at a young age gracefully, and in a more mature - loose.It grows slowly.The needles are a beautiful dark green color.The gardens and parks yew berry (care does not require much effort) is used in group plantings and singly.It lends itself well to molding.
