YERMAK, Timofeyev, Cossack conqueror of western Siberia: d. Irtish River, Sept. 1584. He was chief of a band of Cossacks which, defeated and outlawed by Ivan IV, took refuge in the settlements of the Stroganov family in Perm. They were undesired guests and the Stroganov, it is said, devised as an expedient of being rid of them, the project of Yermak's moving against the marauding forces of the Khan of Sibir, the Stroganov to furnish ade quate supplies for the expedition. Yermak invaded the country in 1580; took Isker, the residence of the Khan, in 1581 and drove that ruler into the mountains. Yermak turned the conquered territory over to Ivan IV, and for this service received full pardon for past offenses. After his death by drowning in the Irtish River, his forces abandoned Siberia. He figures in Russian folk songs, and is the sub ject of a drama by Khomyakov, 'Yermak' (1832).
YEW, evergreen coniferous shrubs or trees of the genus Taxus. The leaves are flat nee dles arranged in two ranks to the right and left of the stem, but in a horizontal plane. The flowers are dicecious, and have no perianth; the male inflorescences are composed of a few sta mens partly united at the apex of a scaly, axil lary stalk, with shield-shaped bracts forming a spherical head. The female flowers are axil lary, naked ovules seated on a fleshy annular disc, which becomes cup-shaped and scarlet, and nearly encloses the bony seed. The Euro pean yew, a tree famous in the annals of Old World gardens, is Taxus baccata. It is readily recognizable by its lustrous foliage, so dark a green as to appear velvety and almost black in the shadows. When rather young the typical yew has a 'broadly pyramidal head, but in its old age it becomes ragged and broken, not unlike an aged hemlock Some trees have attained a great age, and they reach to a height of 100 feet, and sometimes to a diameter of 10 feet. In culti vation there are several varieties of yew, in cluding the Irish, with fastigiate branches and columnar habit, and the golden yews, with foli age, which, to a certain extent, is yellow. The dark yew was a favorite tree for planting in church yards. It is even now a common plant in European cemeteries, and has been for centu ries a symbol of mourning at funerals, and especially at those of unhappy lovers.
Lay a garland on my hearse Of the dismal yew This couplet in the
a very low, shrubby species with decumbent branches radiating in every direction and form ing thickets hard for a man to travel through, but a first-rate cover for grouse. It grows in moist lands under the shade of trees, and is readily recognized by its dark foliage and the glowing, crimson, oblong, cup-like fruits.