It's about a foot tall, with leaves that look like this (I've posted an image of both sides of the leaves.) Thank you!
And to some, death from eating Taxus . . . so don't try it! Andrewlos's plant is likely Japanese Yew Taxus cuspidata, with leaves more sharply pointed ('cuspidate') than is usual for the more commonly planted but less hardy European Yew T. baccata.
This is a very nice conifer site: http://www.conifers.org/ta/ta/index.htm He indicates there are seven species, a lot of need for field work for the genus, and hundreds of cultivars.....
Im just going to throw this out there, but if the plant is only about a foot tall, could it be Cephalotaxus harringtonia? If planted in the right location in RI, it could very well survive, and thus could be a viable option? Just wondering
Definitely Taxus. Not Cephalotaxus, nor any of the Chilean conifers (which apart from that they look different, wouldn't be hardy in RI anyway). K Baron - maybe you're thinking of Prumnopitys andina (syn. Podocarpus andinus)? - that has superficially similar foliage, but different texture, shorter, softer, glaucous-tinged leaves arranged differently.
Wikipedia has this description for Cephalotaxus: The leaves are spirally arranged on the shoots, but twisted at the base to lie in two flat ranks (except on erect leading shoots); they are linear, 3-11 cm long and 3-4 mm broad, soft in texture, with a blunt tip; this helps distinguish them from the related genus Torreya, which has spine-tipped leaves. Perhaps it is the appearance of being 2-ranked that distinguishes it from the plant in question. The sheathing is distinct too...
