1) This was an English equivalent of ‘vert’ and could apply to the green parts of trees in the woods and forests: and making waste 'in the greene hew of the Forrest' in referred to in 1598 (OED).
It could apply also to a tenant’s payment for the right to cut such greenery, sometimes as fodder for his animals. A survey of Settrington in 1599-1600 lists among the bailiff’s profits 2d receuyd at euery Michaelmas yearlye of euery house in the name of Grenehue: in return the tenants were allowed to cut in the woodes of Sitrington small writhing wandes for tying vp ther cattell & making harrow wythes. A Tong rental of 1626 had the heading Boones and Greenhues due and rec[eive]d. In Woolley manor, where these payments were still being made in the 1680s, a tenant said that he had heard that ‘green-hue’ meant the farmers right to take Radlins for the thatching and mortering of their houses. ‘Radlins’ here were twigs or thin boughs but the tenant’s need to explain greenhew may suggest that the custom was already in decline there. Nevertheless, Wright stated that the ‘green hew’ was still being paid in Dalton in Furness in the nineteenth century, and it referred there to the right to cut pea-sticks in certain woods.