Yew

Brief description:

One of Ireland’s few native evergreen trees found mostly in prostrate form in the Burren, leaves dark glossy green, bark red-brown, scaley. The male yew trees have small cones while the female yew produces bright red berries which contain poisonous seeds.

Noteworthy characteristics:

Yew trees are amongst the oldest in Ireland with some notable trees occurring with a girth of over 6m.  Highly regarded by our ancients yew trees have a long history within Irish culture. It is said that Saint Patrick planted  yew trees during his time in Ireland.  Many individual specimens were regarded as sacred, and as a consequence were left without any human interference.