Talk:Taxus baccata

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The Irish Yew that is illustrated at Kenilworth may be T. baccata but it is not the selection called 'Fastigiata' --as a little reflection makes clear. --Wetman 16:33, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

It is; this cultivar gets quite wide with age, as side branches splay out with their weight (particularly after heavy snow) then each shoot on the bent branch turns upward. Specimens in England (where winters are colder and snowier) get broader than specimens in Ireland (where snow is rare) (ref., A. F. Mitchell, Conifers in the British Isles) - MPF 01:02, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

The descriptor "fastigiata" means "narrowly upright in growth"; whatever happens to fastigiate yews in advanced age, this is an illustration that will tend to be misleading, handsome though it may be. --04:42, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Literary references 2 Video Games 3 Cure for AIDS?! 4 Toxicity

[edit] Literary references

The list of literary references (which could go on for ever) tells the reader nothing more about the yew or its symbolism. I suggest scrapping it unless anyone can add something of significance.--Shantavira 15:12, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

I added the Gunnar D. Hansson literary reference which does add something of significance: a 200 page book about the yew tree, the book meanders from the islands off the western coast of Sweden (where yews grow) to the significance of the yew to humans for the last few millenia. Vidyadhara 10:13, 14 May 2007 (UTC)::

I've cut a couple of the more trivial ones, and tried to arrange the rest in (very roughly!) chronological order. Maybe more should be cut. - MPF 21:26, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Video Games

I removed: "Video Game Reference Yew trees are also found in Runescape; a player needing level 60 woodcutting to cut one."

from the page. It had been added as the first entry in this article about a plant and does not seem to be notable. Perhaps the Runescape page, which I've not gone to if there even is one, should link here, but this single sentence is really silly. Crocadillion 14:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cure for AIDS?!

I removed: "There are rumors that yew roots can be prepared into a cure for AIDS, but this has yet to be tested."

Unreferenced, and absurd. --JMB (talk) 13:17, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Toxicity

According to W. J. Stokoe in The Oberver's Book of Trees and Shrubs (Frederick Warne & Co. Ltd., no date given), p. 194, "Yew-berries are not poisonous, as sometimes supposed; neither is the contained kernel, which has a pleasant nutty flavour." As to the leaves, Stokoe says, "it appears that if eaten in large quantities they will prove fatal to man, cattle, horses, sheep, pigs, and possibly other animals, but small quantities of the leaves are usually harmless." (I have tested these statements and lived to tell the tale.) Kostaki mou (talk) 04:25, 19 March 2008 (UTC)