A 410-year-old Pacific yew tree, possibly oldest of its kind in US, falls in Washington state: 'It was its time'

ILLAHEE, Wash. – The reign of a contender for the title of oldest Pacific yew tree in the United States has come to an end.

The yew's gnarled, bubbly bark and green limbs – celebrated for decades with an exhibit and fencing at Illahee State Park in Washington – finally came crashing down one day in late December.

"It was its time," said David Cass, agency forester for Washington State Parks. "It was rotten in the middle of the tree and had decayed quite a bit."

Arborists had dated the tree's beginnings as a seed to around the year 1610, the same time Galileo Galilei was first observing the moons of Jupiter. Jim Trainer, a longtime arborist sometimes referred to as "Kitsap's Johnny Appleseed," wrote in the Kitsap Sun of the USA TODAY Network that it was likely the oldest Pacific yew in the U.S.

While old, it was not necessary that big.

"This tree is a small and slow grower in the understory of our Douglas Fir and Western Hemlock forests. The tree very rarely grows any higher than 50 feet," Trainer wrote in 2005.

State Park Ranger Kenan Murray, who oversees the park, began to notice this fall that, inch by inch, the trunk of the tree was beginning to separate.

"It was obvious that it was starting to fall over," he said.

Parks crews drilled inside, finding a hollowed-out tree that, while ideal for nesting animals, was probably not long for the vertical world. Murray kept a close eye on it. A crutch to keep it upright was considered too late, as the yew crashed to the ground on Dec. 17.

Ideal for carving, the tree's bark and limbs produced bows and many other tools for tribes within its growing area, which spans the Columbia River to northern British Columbia, according to Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, a guidebook. Rather than cones that other conifers grow and shed, the yew's single seeds are found inside a red berry-like fruit called an Aril that resembles a bead.

It has been found to possess cancer-fighting properties, after a botanist named Arthur Barclay collected yew tree samples while on a visit to Washington in 1962, according to the National Institutes of Health's Cancer Institute. Barclay's samples of bark would expose taxol, which has since become a prominent anti-cancer drug.

This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: 410-year-old Pacific yew tree, maybe oldest in US, falls in Washington