Detailed Encyclopedia Introduction to Chinese Yew Seedlings

Latin family name Taxaceae

Chinese family name Taxaceae

Latin genus name Enpcontent

Chinese genus name Taxus

Chinese species name Chinese Yew

Scientific name (Taxus chinensis (Pilger) Rehd.

Aliases: purple yew, red cypress pine, Guanyin yew, etc.

There are 11 species of Taxus plants worldwide, distributed in temperate to tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere. China has 4 native species and 1 variety, namely Chinese yew, Japanese yew, Yunnan yew, Himalayan yew, and southern Chinese yew (variety). The introduced species includes the Media yew (Taxus media), which was introduced to China from Canada in the mid-1990s, and is now cultivated in Sichuan, Ziyuan and Lingui in Guangxi, Shandong, and other places.

The Chinese yew is one of the yew species. The yew (scientific name Taxus mairei) is a relict plant from the Quaternary Ice Age and a rare and endangered species in the world. The Chinese yew is endemic to China, distributed in southern Gansu, southern Shaanxi, western Hubei, Sichuan, and other places. In the Central China region, it is mostly found in undisturbed environments on mountain upper slopes above 1000 m; in South China and Southwest China, it is mostly found in mountain deciduous broad-leaved forests at 1500-3000 m, relatively concentrated in the Hengduan Mountain area and the mountains around the Sichuan Basin, and also distributed in northern Guangxi, eastern Guizhou, and southern Hunan.

China has listed it as a first-class key protected plant.

Morphological characteristics

Evergreen tree, up to 30 m tall, trunk diameter up to 1 m. Leaves spiral, twisted at the base into two ranks, linear, slightly curved, 1-2.5 cm long, 2-2.5 mm wide, leaf margin slightly recurved, leaf tip acuminate, with 2 broad yellow-green or gray-green stomatal bands on the back, densely covered with small raised dots on the midrib, green band at the leaf margin extremely narrow. Dioecious; male cones solitary in leaf axils; ovule of female cone solitary at the apex of a short lateral axis on the upper part of the flower axis, with a disc-shaped aril at the base. Seeds flattened ovate, with 2 ridges, seed hilum ovate, with a red cup-shaped aril, maturing from September to November.

Biological characteristics

It prefers to grow in relatively warm and rainy places and is a typical shade-tolerant tree species. It often occurs in the second and third tree layers under the forest canopy, scattered, basically without pure stands, and rarely in clumped distribution. It grows well only on well-drained acidic gray-brown soil, yellow soil, and yellow-brown soil. Seedlings prefer shade and avoid direct sunlight. Its seed coat is thick, and the seeds are in deep dormancy; under natural conditions, they can only germinate after two winters and one summer, and natural regeneration ability is weak. It is propagated by seeds. The embryo dormancy period is relatively long; after seed collection, the seeds must be stored in wet sand stratification at low temperature, sown in spring, and the germination period may be extended to the second year. It can also be propagated by cuttings.

Economic uses

Although the Chinese yew is relatively widely distributed in China, its resource reserves are scarce. It is mainly used for medicine, ornamental purposes, scientific research, and so on.

I. Medicinal uses

Paclitaxel and its derivatives extracted from the Chinese yew plant are among the best anticancer drugs in the world today and have very high development and utilization value.

In 1971, the United States extracted paclitaxel from yew. Because the yew extract (TAXOL PACLITAXEL) paclitaxel has a unique anticancer mechanism, Dr. BRODER, director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, called paclitaxel, after doxorubicin and cisplatin, a new anticancer drug considered over the past fifteen years to have good efficacy against multiple cancers and few side effects. Beginning in the 1980s, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, South Korea, and China all carried out in-depth research one after another. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for clinical use in 1992. The United States took the lead in applying research results to medical clinical practice and achieved remarkable clinical results in treating various cancers. It has been proven effective against multiple cancers, especially achieving success in the treatment of ovarian cancer and breast cancer, with a cure rate of 33% and an effective rate of 75%. Paclitaxel has become currently recognized worldwide as the best drug for treating cancer. Since then, humanity has made another breakthrough in the field of anticancer treatment. Therefore, up to now and for a considerable period in the future, the most advantageous weapon for humanity in fighting cancer can only be paclitaxel. The world's annual production of paclitaxel is only about 250 kg, market supply and demand are unbalanced, and the price is extremely expensive, reaching more than 200,000 USD per kg, so yew is known as "plant gold."

Paclitaxel is mainly extracted from the roots, bark, stems, and leaves of yew. Because the extraction process is relatively complex, especially in removing the chlorophyll components from the original liquid, and because equipment investment is relatively large, especially with a lack of raw material sources, the large-scale extraction of paclitaxel developed relatively late in China, only beginning in the 1990s. Because under natural conditions yew grows slowly and has poor regenerative capacity, for a long time no large-scale yew raw material forest base had been formed worldwide.

II. Ornamental uses

The Chinese yew has a beautiful and elegant tree shape and remains green throughout the four seasons. When the fruit ripens, the color combination of red and green is intoxicating. It can be widely used in soil and water conservation

and horticultural ornamental purposes, and so on. It is an excellent tree species for improving the ecological environment and building beautiful mountains and rivers in the new century, and is now often used for high-grade courtyard landscaping and ornamental purposes.

III. Scientific research uses

The Chinese yew is a rare and endangered plant left over after the Quaternary glaciation, with very few natural distributions worldwide, and is listed as a national first-class key protected plant. It has extremely high scientific research value in many aspects.

IV. Other uses

The wood of the Chinese yew is fine and dense, bright red in color, tough and durable, and is a precious timber tree species. It is often used for carving, making high-grade furniture, handicrafts, and so on; the wood is rot-resistant and can be used as timber for civil engineering; the seeds have an oil content of 60% and have special development value.