Taxus baccata L. var. adpressa

Horticultural & Botanical History

According to Johnson’s Dictionary it was first introduced to Europe in 1844, from Japan.  The following puts this I doubt.  ‘One of the most distinct of the many varieties, the broad and short leaves rendering recognition by no means difficult.  It is of spreading growth, with short, sub-horizontal branches, and very dark green leaves, arranged in double rows, and inclined upwards and forwards.  Each leaf is about 1/2 an inch long, and obtusely pointed, while the fruit is vermilion red, the cup usually only half covering the ovoid seed.  By many authors this has been described as a species, but, although very distinct both in leaves and fruit, yet the fact of certain specimens that have come under my own notice containing both branches of the species and T. b. adpressa clearly proves the parentage.

In reply to a letter of mine, the late Mr. F. Arthur Dickson, of the Chester Nurseries, writes as follows regarding the present shrub: — “This yew was discovered by my father, the late Mr. Francis Dickson, somewhere about 1838.  It was growing in a bed of seedlings of the common English yew.  It is therefore undoubtedly a seedling sport.  Being of slow growth, it was necessarily slow of propagation, and it took many years to get up a stock upon the grounds of the then firm of F. & J. Dickson, of which my father was the head.  I well remember the value my father set by this plant, and his chagrin and vexation when, on his return home after a few days absence, he learned that a representative of the late firm of Knight & Perry, nurserymen, Chelsea, had, in looking over the nurseries, purchased and taken away with him some half-dozen good-sized plants, as the result of negotiation with an inexperienced salesman, who was presumably ignorant of the value of the plants.  This enabled the Chelsea firm to propagate the plant, and, if I remember rightly, the specific name adpressa was given to it by Knight & Perry, but my father always adhered to the name he had originally given it — brevifolia.  In order to avoid confusion, I have retained the name by which this distinct variety is commonly known.’  [Hardy Coniferous Trees. Webster.  p.117/1896].

History at Camden Park

Listed only in the 1857 catalogue [C.84/1857].

Notes