YEW

[wildcat hunter]

 Today we helped clean out brush, straighten up leaning stones etc from an old cemetery.  I was asked to trim tree branches too. There were some trees that my wife said were Yew. We live in Pennsylvania, is a Yew tree the same as the Western Yew ? I'll describe them to better visualize what they are. These are not like a normal tree, these are branches coming out starting at the ground level and progressing to the top. They are on a main trunk but its not like a normal tree. Hard to describe but the branches ( about 2"-3" in diameter ) grow UP and out from the main trunk. They are a mess of tangled limbs. " Do you think these will make a bow wood ? I brought 2 limbs home with me. They have 1/4 to 3/8ths white sapwood and the hearts are yellow like normal Yew.

[High-Desert]

There are several varieties of ornamental yew. Irish yew and I think Chinese yew are a couple varieties.

[upstatenybowyer]

Yep. From your description, it sounds like some type of ornamental like HD said. Probably Irish or Chinese (see pics below). Both are common in cemeteries.

A number of guys have posted that they were going to try building a bow from it, but I can't recall ever seeing a finished product.

I've never tried using it, but my guess is that you should go wider and thicker than Pacific or English, with plenty of length.

[Lucasade]

Irish yew (taxus baccata 'fastigiata') is a type of English yew (taxus baccata). As the name suggests Irish yew is more of a columnar tree than English. Two saplings of it were discovered by an Irish peasant a couple of hundred years ago, he put one in his garden and gave one to his squire. His died and the squire's became the basis of every Irish yew in the world. There's justice for you...

[Del the cat]

A lot of the shape will be from it having been trimmed. It will probably make a fine bow if you can find a long straightish bit.
You will probably need to go with spliced billets.
This post from my blog may be of interest, it shows a Yew that looked like that... it made several fine bows including the Wonky warbow:-
https://bowyersdiary.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/early-fathers-day-adventure.html
Del

[wildcat hunter]

 Looking at the 3 pictures it looks like the Chinese Yew but more branches, tons more and twisted through each other. Well, I have 2 fairly straight pieces. We'll see in a year what they will do. By them my shoulder should be working again and I'll tie into it.

[FilipT]

It seems I have two "Irish" ones in the garden. Always thought it was "regular yew" lol.