NVC community W13 also known as Yew woodland, is one of the woodland

Woodland and scrub communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system

This article gives an overview of the woodland and scrub communities in the British National Vegetation Classification system.-Introduction:The woodland and scrub communities of the NVC were described in Volume 1 of British Plant Communities, first published in 1991.In total, 25 woodland/scrub...

 communities in the British National Vegetation Classification

British National Vegetation Classification

The British National Vegetation Classification or NVC is a system of classifying natural habitat types in Great Britain according to the vegetation they contain....

 system; it is the only Yew woodland community in the NVC.

This is a very localised community. There are two subcommunities:

Community composition

Only one constant species is found in this community, Yew

Taxus baccata

Taxus baccata is a conifer native to western, central and southern Europe, northwest Africa, northern Iran and southwest Asia. It is the tree originally known as yew, though with other related trees becoming known, it may be now known as the English yew, or European yew.-Description:It is a small-...

 (Taxus baccata).

A single rare species, European Box (Buxus sempervirens) is also associated with the community.

Distribution

This community is almost wholly confined to chalk sites on the North

North Downs

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. The North Downs lie within two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty , the Surrey Hills and the Kent Downs...

 and South Downs

South Downs

The South Downs is a range of chalk hills that extends for about across the south-eastern coastal counties of England from the Itchen Valley of Hampshire in the west to Beachy Head, near Eastbourne, East Sussex, in the east. It is bounded on its northern side by a steep escarpment, from whose...

 in southern England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

.

Subcommunities

There are two subcommunities:

• the Sorbus aria subcommunity
• the Mercurialis perennis subcommunity