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Yew: The Immortal Tree revealed through drawing

Drawing trees is a wonderful way to study them and to learn about their structure and form, including how they have come to be the tree that is being captured on paper.  Although each tree is individual and shaped by where it grows and what has happened to it throughout its life, there are certain features that give an indication of its age, as Pam Taylor discovered as she drew four different aged yew trees.


Words and illustrations by Pam Taylor, botanist, botanical artist and ABA Committee and Education Team member.

 
Dropmore Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink by Pam Taylor
Dropmore Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor

St Anne’s church at Dropmore, Buckinghamshire dates from the 1860s and it is reasonable to assume that the yew tree that I have drawn, which grows in the churchyard, is a similar age. I drew this tree because of its attractive shape, which is characteristic of young mature yew trees. Look closely and you will see that the trunk of the tree is not a simple single stem, as is typical of many conifers including the Norway spruce or Christmas tree (Picea abies). Instead the base of several branches, which reach to the top of the crown,  form the trunk. You can see the terminal twigs and shoots of three or four such branches forming the flattish top to the crown of the yew in my drawing. At the base of the trunk where these branches fuse the circumference of the tree bulges slightly in line with each branch, giving the trunk a ribbed appearance.  Each year, as the water and nutrients that the roots absorb are carried up the trunk to the branches, this ribbing will become more pronounced. It also means that each of the four or five main branches reaching up to the top of the crown is firmly rooted into the ground.  Side branches grow out from these main stems towards the light and fill out the tree, often crisscrossing, which makes them a challenge to illustrate.

Old Windsor Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor
Old Windsor Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor

Yew trees continue filling out and growing in this way for four or five hundred years. Eventually storms and high winds may damage the tree or branches may be cut back and the heart wood will start to rot.   


The yew tree that I have drawn from the Old Windsor churchyard illustrates how this affects the tree beautifully, and on my drawing it is quite easy to trace the bulges or ribs in the trunk up to the individual vertical branches.  


I have no idea of the age of this tree but if you look closely at the centre of the trunk you will see that the heartwood is beginning to rot away, which suggests that this yew is at least 400 years old. 


On the right hand side of my illustration, where branches have been cut, there is a cluster of strong growing straight stems, quite distinct from the cascading branches of the rest of the tree.  The growth form of the straight branches is similar to that of yew saplings, and is what is termed juvenile foliage.  These juvenile branches are too young to bear berries, but illustrate how trees, and yews in particular, are able to rejuvenate themselves, so that they can live for many hundreds if not thousands of years. 


Close inspection of the soft rotting wood, which I stippled to highlight its texture, reveals that roots from these new stems are growing through the decaying wood on their way down to the soil below. This means that the new growth will have its own root system anchoring it into the soil, and possibly fed by the nutrients from the rotting heartwood.  


This ability to rejuvenate and overcome ageing is typical of plants, and means that some trees can keep growing for centuries, unlike animals.  The nutrients released from the rotting heartwood and from decaying leaves will all help to feed these young branches.  I wonder how many times the nutrients have been recycled in this Old Windsor yew?  Over the centuries more and more of the heartwood of the yew tree will rot away, removing all possibility of ageing the tree by counting the annual rings in the wood of the trunk.  


Ankerwyke Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor
Ankerwyke Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor



At Ankerwyke, by the River Thames, there is a yew where most of the heartwood has rotted away.  From a distance this mighty yew looks like an enormous tangled and rather formless mass.   However if you go under the branches, as I did to make my drawing, you will see how ribbed the outside of the hollow trunk has become. 


It is extremely difficult to estimate the age of such a venerable yew, but dendrologists generally agree that this tree is probably close to 2500 years old! The living branches have effectively formed a ring around the hollow interior and the girth of the Ankerwyke Yew measures eight meters.





At Upper Farringdon in Hampshire, close to where Jane Austen lived, two ancient yews grow in the churchyard.  One has a hollow trunk with a girth similar to the Ankerwyke Yew and is also reckoned to be 2500 years old.  The other yew measures 30ft or 9.14m and is the one that I have illustrated.  


Farringdon Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor
Farringdon Yew (Taxus baccata), pen and ink, Pamela Taylor

Compaction of the soil and possibly age mean that this tree is not in the best of health. Indeed its girth has not increased since it was measured over 250 years ago by the naturalist, Gilbert White. The trunk has completely rotted away between the living portions of the tree, which mean that today it exists as three massive fragments separated by gaps wide enough to walk through.  As I drew the tree I pondered on its age. If the Ankerwyke and younger Farringdon yews, with their hollow circle of trunks, are 2500 years old, it is possible that it has taken another thousand years or more for the trunks to have developed into the fragments of the older tree, which would mean that it could be approaching 4000 years. No wonder yew is sometimes referred to as the immortal tree!


 

Pamela Taylor studied botany at Southampton and Cambridge Universities. As a botanical artist she has a special interest in depicting ancient trees, and likes to work in pen and ink, feeling that this is an ideal medium to capture the character of these specimens.

 

She is a fellow of the Society of Botanical Artists, a founder member of the Association of Botanical Artists and a fellow of the Linnaean Society. In 2022 she was awarded a silver-gilt medal for her exhibit, Trees: Form and Structure, at the RHS Botanical Art and Photography Show at the Saatchi Gallery, London.

 

Pam’s illustrations of yew trees will appear in her forthcoming book, ‘Secrets of Trees: history, ecology and botany revealed through drawing’, which is due to be published in spring 2025 by Two Rivers Press.


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