YETHOLH, a parish of Scotland, in the n.e. of Roxburghshire, bordering on England, 15 na. e.u.e. of Jedburgh. The Beaumont water runs through the parish, and on either side of this stream are the villages of Kirk-Yetholm and Town-Yetholm, the former being the head-quarters of the gypsies in Scotland. According to the census of Scot land for 1871 the village of Yetholm contained 796 inhabitants.
YEW, Taxes, a genus of trees of the natural order taracem, which is very generally regarded as a sub-order of coniferee, and is characterized by solitary and terminal fertile flowers, with a solitary ovule sessile in the center of a fleshy disk, forming a sort of drupe when in fruit, and by dicotyledonous seeds. The genus Oxus is distinguished by a solitary terminal seed, surrounded by a succulent cup. The species are diffused over the whole northern parts of the world, and are large and beautiful evergreen trees, with narrow Lanceolate or linear leaves. The CO313I0N YEW (T. baccata), a tree of 30 to 40 ft., and u trunk sometimes of great thickness, branching a few feet above the ground, and forming a large and dense bead, is a native of the middle and s. of Europe and of Siberia. Noble specimens of It are to be seen in many parts of Britain. It attains a great age, at least 300 or 400 years. Its wood has been much used from very early times for making bows, for which it is preferred to every other kind of wood. It is very hard, and reckoned almost equal to boxwood for fine work. The heart-wood is of an orange-red or deep-brown color. The fruit is red, and was long reputed poisonous,
but the pulpy part is not so; the seed, however, is a dangerous poison. The leaves also are a powerful narcotic; and although they are sometimes given as a vermifuge, their use is attended with danger.—The limn YEW (7' fastigiate of Lindley; 7'. Hibirnica of Hooker), originally discovered in Ireland, and now very common in pleasure-grounds, is by many supposed to be a mere variety of the common species, with upright fastigiate habit, but it differs also in having the leaves scattered, while those of the common Yew are in two rows.—The NORTH AMERICAN YEW (T. Camulensis) is of humbler growth.— The name JAPAN YEW is sometimes given to pockearpus macrophyllus, a tree of a genus nearly allied to taxes, and recently separated from it. It is a large and stout tree, a native of Japan; its wood much valued for cabinet-work. Other species of podoempus are natives of the warmer parts of Asia, of Chili, New Holland, etc. P. nucifer is a lofty tree of the northern provinces of Japan and mountains of Nepaul, from the seed of which an oil is extracted, lit for culinary purposes, although the seed itself is too astrin gent to be eaten. To the order or sub-order taracece belongs also the genus salislouria (see Grnako), the genus dacrydtum (q.v.), and phyllocladis, a genus in which the foliage, as in salisburia, has a remarkable resemblance to the fronds of ferns. P. trichomanoides is a large New Zealand tree.