Common yew (Taxus baccata L.) is well known for its extraordinary longitudinal elasticity and toughness. Among other things, its wood was used for certain historical weapons (longbows, lances, crossbows) requiring these material properties, particularly the low Young's modulus and at the same time a high stretchability parallel to the grain.

Indisputably, there are further elastic conifer species, but none of them have a similarly high raw density as yew. Thus, yew holds an exceptional position, especially since there is usually a strong species-spanning positive interrelation between density and Young's modulus.

Aim of this present study was to identify the reasons for this compliant mechanical response of yew despite its high density. For this purpose, the longitudinal Young's moduli of yew and further properties were determined at different hierarchical levels, from the solid wood level to the tracheid level. Moreover, selected structural details were examined.

Deriving structure-property relations from the results yields a rather broad and at the same time detailed understanding of the elasto-mechanical behaviour of common yew. Based on these findings, we also speculate about the biomechanical strategy behind these unusual tissue characteristics.