Arils by any other name ...

The Yew trees are now in fruit and are producng these beautiful bright red arils.

Note that I say arils rather than berries or pomes. They're a specific type of fruit shaped like a cup with a seed at the base of each hollow.

Yew trees contain highly poisonous taxane alkaloids that have been developed into anti-cancer drugs. Eating just a few leaves can make a small child severely ill and there have been some deaths linked to yew poisoning. All parts of the tree are poisonous .. except for the arils. They are, in fact, edible and taste something like grapes. However, if you leave any part of the seed inside the aril, it could give you a very upset tummy if you chew or swallow it. Experienced foragers will tell you that the best way to eat them is to pop the whole thing in your moyth and then tease the flesh away from the seed using your tongue ... as long as you remember to spit out the seed. But are you willing to take the risk? I did once but, to be frank, it wasn't interesting or tasty enough for me to bother again. 

Mature yew trees can grow to up to 20m high and can live for thopusands of years - you might recall that I visited the 5000 year old Fortingall Yew in Scotland a couple of months ago (see here). They are associated with churchyards and there are at least 500 churchyards in England which contain yew trees older than the buildings themselves. It is not clear why, but it is thought that yew trees were planted on the graves of plague victims to protect and purify the dead, and also in churchyards to stop 'commoners' from grazing their cattle on church ground as yew is extremely poisonous to livestock. Yew trees were used as symbols of immortality, but also seen as omens of doom. For many centuries it was the custom for yew branches to be carried on Palm Sunday and at funerals. In Ireland it was said that yew was ‘the coffin of the vine’, as wine barrels were made of yew staves.

Yew timber is incredibly strong and durable. Traditionally, the wood was used in turnery and to make long bows and tool handles. One of the World's oldest surviving wooden artefacts is a yew spear head estimated to be around 450,000 years old.