The purpose of this "Yew Conservation Hedge Project" is to maintain the DNA of Taxus baccata from ancient specimens in the UK as, worldwide, the trees are threatened by felling and disease.

[12] The area immediately surrounding Fortingall has a variety of prehistoric archaeological sites including Càrn na Marbh, a Bronze Age tumulus.

Place-name and archaeological evidence hint at an Iron Age cult centre at Fortingall, which may have had this tree as its focus.

[15] The yew is male;[13] however, in 2015, scientists from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh reported that one small branch on the outer part of the crown had changed sex and begun to bear a small group of berries, an occurrence occasionally noted in some dioecious plant species, including yews.

[20] Dr Paul S Philippou, honorary research fellow in history at the University of Dundee, has suggested the legend is historically inaccurate and is an embellished myth.