Yew

"Botanists around the world marvel at the unique characteristics of the yew, Europe’s most ancient species of tree. It is a ‘conifer’ without resin or cones but with juicy scarlet fruits that feed many birds and animals; it has foliage that is poisonous to livestock but which wild animals can eat; and though it has an extraordinarily low rate of photosynthesis, it can grow where other tree seedlings and plants just wither and die. The yew’s lower branches can root themselves, and it can also produce ‘interior roots’ inside a hollowing trunk, renewing itself from the inside out. It was in the…