_Yew Family_
Trees or shrubs with narrow flat evergreen or deciduous leaves and a
drupe-like fruit.
[Sidenote: =Taxus brevifolia= Nutt. _Western Yew._]
A small straggling tree or shrub seldom over 20 feet high and up
to 12 inches in diameter; bark thin, covered with greenish-purple
scales; leaves about ½ an inch long, linear-lanceolate, flat, dark
yellowish-green above, paler below with stout midribs and rigid points;
fruit a fleshy crimson disc ⅓ of an inch long and as broad, surrounding
the hard, nearly black, depressed seed.
Occurs locally in the Selkirks, forming much of the underwood on Beaver
Creek.