Tree Appreciation Tuesday - The 'Adam and Eve' Yew Tree at Bishop's Palace Wells

 I've been delighted by this Yew Tree from the day I first saw it. 

The 'Adam and Eve' Taxus baccate

I had imagined this as a very old tree, with aged boughs removed,  standing there perhaps centuries before the Bishop's Palace and this wall were ever built.  Just how many times have I squeezed myself to look through the 'eye' from the other side?  Not through the hole but round the tree! The saying from the bible sometimes floats into my mind when I see this tree about a camel going through the eye of a needle. I tried this time looking through the  hole to see if I could see something interesting: there they are The White Angel Wings by Edgar Phillips.

Last week I went to a talk for members, and happened to get chatting to one of the group.  As we walked back I found out that she was a volunteers guide, we stopped and chatted by the treen and Diana explained that they used to call this the Adam and Eve Yew, because there used to be a sculpture of Adam and Eve at about the spot where the wings now stand.

A few days earlier on one of my morning walks round the grounds I happened to see James Cross: Head gardener since 2004, and asked him if he knew how old the tree was.  I was quite shocked to hear that he believed it only about 200 years old, so much younger that I thought.  He showed me a tree which was slightly bigger than he knew had been planted around that time too. Further more he explained that the tree by the door to the outer garden was two trees: a male and a female, that had fused together, but he did not know if that had been by design or not.

So much for opening my eyes: I had not realised that there were male and female trees!  I went back to look more closely at the tree.  When you have this knowledge you look at the tree in a different light.  Yes there were branches with the ripening fruit, that was growing from the female part.

Arils bearing the seed on a female Yew Tree

The branches from the male tree had none, with the tips where the male flowers that will bear the pollen which the wind will carry are starting to form.

Tips of branches on a male Yew Tree

The bark of the tree is beautiful and I  noticed the characteristic shedding of small flakes.

The trees are fused at the lower parts, and also higher up.

Finding out a little more about this tree in particular and Yew Trees in general has increased my appreciation of this tree even more.

Just by coincidence when I popped into the library on the way home after taking pictures of the tree, I happened to see a book on the shelf, it was called The Treeline by Ben Rawlence.  The very first page of the book starts off with a description of the Yew behind the author's house. That author describes the trees wonderfully.  Another example of serendipity.

I have been asked since posting this about how to tell the age of Yew Trees.  At the start of his book, Ben explains:

"Dating yew trees is notoriously hard.  This is partly because there is no upper age limit.  They grow rapidly in youth, steadily in middle age, and can survive in senescence for an apparently unlimited period,  Sometimes growth can stop and the tree can stand dormant for long periods, possibly centuries.  Tree ring analysis fails with yews." 

If you would like to join in and post a good tree on your blog, and link it in the comments, you can find some guidelines here: https://noellemace.blogspot.com/2023/10/tree-appreciation-tuesday-participant.html