Rhus - Sumac

Latin plant name Rhus Common plant name Sumac Plant type Flowering shrub Size (meters) <1 - 10 m Distinguishing features The leaves are spirally arranged. Rhus chinensis compounds possess strong antiviral, antibacterial, anticancer, hepatoprotective, antidiarrheal and antioxidant activities.

Salix - Willow

Latin plant name Salix Common plant name Willow Plant type Tree Size (meters) <5-15 m Distinguishing features Found primarily on moist soils in cold and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They came to Ireland right after the melting of the ice age thanks to their light seeds that can be blown by the wind, along with the grasses and the beerchs. Willows all have abundant watery bark sap, which is heavily charged with salicylic acid, soft usually pliant tough wood, slender branches and large fibrous often stoloniferous roots. The roots are remarkable for their toughness, size, and tenacity to life, and roots readily grow from aerial parts of the plant. The leaves are typically elongated, but may also be round to oval, frequently with a serrated margin. Most species are deciduous; semievergreen willows. Willows are dioecious, with male and female flowers appearing as catkins on different plants; the catkins are produced early in the spring, often before the leaves, or as the new leaves open. Basic crafts, such as baskets, fish traps, wattle fences and wattle and daub, house walls, were often woven from osiers. Willow wood is also used in the manufacture of boxes, brooms, cricket bats (grown from certain strains of white willow), cradle boards, chairs and other furniture, dolls, flutes, poles, sweat lodges, toys, turnery, tool handles, veneer, wands and whistles.

Alnus - Alder

Latin plant name Alnus Common plant name Alder (alisos) Plant type Tree Size (meters) <20-40 m Distinguishing features With a few exceptions, alders are deciduous, and the leaves are alternate, simple, and serrated. The flowers are catkins with elongate male catkins on the same plant as shorter female catkins, These trees differ from the birches (Betula, the other genus in the family) in that the female catkins are woody and do not disintegrate at maturity, opening to release the seeds in a similar manner to many conifer cones. Alder leaves and sometimes catkins are used as food by numerous butterflies and moths. Alder bark contains the anti-inflammatory salicin, which is metabolized into salicylic acid in the body. As a hardwood, alder is used in making furniture and cabinets and other woodworking products.

Taxus baccata - Yew tree

Latin plant name Taxus baccata Common plant name Yew tree Plant type Conifer tree  Size (meters) 10 - 20 m Distinguishing features The trunk can be up to 2 metres (exceptionally 4 m) diameter. The bark is thin, scaly brown, coming off in small flakes aligned with the stem. The leaves are lanceolate, flat, dark green, 1–4 centimetres long and 2–3 millimetres broad, arranged spirally on the stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem, It is relatively slow growing, and can be very long-lived, with the maximum recorded trunk diameter of 4 metres probably only being reached in about 2,000 years. It is considered by several authors that the oldest yew tree in Spain is located in Bermiego,Asturias. It is known as 'Teixu l'Iglesia' in the Asturian language. It is 15 metres tall with a trunk perimeter of 6 metres and a crown diameter of 10 metres. It was planted around 1160. It was declared Natural Monument on April 27, 1995 by the Asturian Government and is protected by the Plan of Natural Resources. Most parts of the tree are toxic, except the bright red aril surrounding the seed, enabling ingestion and dispersal by birds. The major toxin is the alkaloid taxane. The foliage remains toxic even when wilted or dried. Horses have the lowest tolerance, with a lethal dose of 200–400 mg/kg body weight, but cattle, pigs, and other livestock are only slightly less vulnerable. Symptoms include staggering gait, muscle tremors, convulsions, collapse, difficulty breathing, coldness and eventually heart failure. However, death occurs so rapidly that many times the symptoms are missed. Fatal poisoning in humans is very rare, only occurring after eating a lot of yew foliage. The lethal dose is reported to be between 50 and 100 grams.The wood is also poisonous. There aren't weeds beneath the yew trees because the roots are also poisonous. In the ancient Celtic world, the yew tree (*eburos) had extraordinary importance; a passage by Caesar narrates that Catuvolcus, chief of the Eburones poisoned himself with yew rather than submit to Rome (Gallic Wars 6: 31).  The yew is often found in churchyards in England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland and France. In Ireland it is called the death tree. Yew is the wood of choice for longbow making; the bows are constructed so that the heartwood of yew is on the inside of the bow while the sapwood is on the outside. This takes advantage of the natural properties of yew wood since the heartwood resists compression while the sapwood resists stretching. In latin the termination 'xus' gives the indication of its use in medicine. Taxol is a medicine use to treat cancer and it is extracter from the yew tree.