WILLIAMSON'S WEEKLY NATURE NOTES

A NEW book on the yew tree describes the curious experience of a 71-year-old man who had a close encounter with yew trees in his garden. Dr A. Kukowka, a retired medical professor, had been gardening on a hot day beneath four yews for two hours when he was overcome by dizziness, nausea, headache and restlessness.

He became disorientated and lost his sense of time. He began to hallucinate. Visions of vampires, vipers and "diabolical scenes" were accompanied by a fearful cold sweat and somewhat paralysed limbs. This was soon followed by visions of paradise, heavenly music of the spheres under a huge dome, euphoria and "an indescribably happy mood".

When he emerged from this voyage, he called his doctor, who could find no signs of poisoning, dehydration, or salt loss. The experience under the yew trees proved to be reproducible but Kukowka admitted fear and did not attempt the experiment a third time.

The yew, unlike other conifers, contains alkaloids ("alkali-like") as does nicotine, morphine, ephedrine, mescaline and cocaine.

They cause various physiological and psychological effects on humans and animals. The whole of the yew is poisonous, except, strangely enough, the pulp (coloured red) that surrounds the seed. I have eaten this pulp many times. It starts to appear on female yews only, from now until late November, and is eaten in quantity by thrushes and badgers. The pip inside is poisonous.

There are 11 authenticated examples of human death by poison, most of them self inflicted.

I worked for 30 years as warden of the finest yew forest in Europe at Kingley Vale, three miles north of Chichester, where there are 30,000 yew trees but I never had any of the experiences of Dr Kukowka.

However, others working under yew trees have reported strange symptoms.

Yew '“ A History, by Fred Hageneder, is published by Sutton Publishing at 25. With forewords by Robert Hardy and David Bellamy and copiously illustrated, it covers a range of 45 separate subjects connected to the yew tree, including art, history, historic trees, long bows, and wildlife of its forests.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette July 25