Japanese Yews (Taxus cuspidata)
Japanese Yews look and behave pretty much like their hybrid progeny, but there are some cultivars that are worth noting:
Capitata is upright pyramidal, often growing to 20' tall by 5' wide (can be 40' tall by 10' wide under optimum conditions). It gets leggy with age, however if limbed up it will reveal its very attractive purplish-red-brown exfoliating bark. It has a tight pyramidal form in youth which yields to a graceful 45-degree angled branching, and finally becomes spreading or rounded with age (unless it is sheared to maintain its youthful pyramidal shape).
Nana, forms a wide-spreading plant 8 to 10 feet high and 15 to 20 feet wide and is useful for hedges. Adams is a columnar cultivar. Aurescens has golden-yellow foliage when grown in the sun. Bobbink is a dense, cone-shaped dwarf. Columnaris grows faster than Capitata and is narrower. F & F Compacta is a slow growing cultivar that is wider than tall. The foliage becomes bronzed in winter. Farmen is a slow-growing and compact plant with dark green foliage. Fasigiata (Captain TM) is an improved 'Capitata' that has better winter color. Greenwave is a low, mounded plant with arching branches and dark green foliage.
