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Taxaceae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Taxaceae
Temporal range: Early Jurassic–Present (possible Late Triassic records)
Foliage and mature arils of a yew plant
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Embryophytes
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Spermatophytes
Clade: Gymnosperms
Division: Pinophyta
Class: Pinopsida
Order: Cupressales
Family: Taxaceae
S.F.Gray
Genera
Synonyms
  • Austrotaxaceae Neger 1907
  • Cephalotaxaceae Kudo & Yamamoto 1931

Taxaceae, the yew family, is a family of coniferous trees and shrubs which includes six extant and two extinct genera, and about 30 species of plants, or in older interpretations three genera and 7 to 12 species.

Description

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They are many-branched, small trees and shrubs. The leaves are evergreen, spirally arranged, often twisted at the base to appear 2-ranked. They are linear to lanceolate, and have pale green or white stomatal bands on the undersides.[1]

The plants are dioecious, or rarely monoecious. The catkin like male cones are 2–5 millimetres (0.079–0.197 in) long, and shed pollen in the early spring. They are sometimes externally only slightly differentiated from the branches. The fertile bracts have 2-8 pollen sacs.[1][2]: 39 

The female 'cones' are highly reduced.[1] Only the upper or uppermost bracts are fertile and bear one or rarely two seeds.[2] They may be found on the ends of branches or on the branches. They may grow singly or in groups or clumps.[2]

As the seed matures, a fleshy aril partly (Amentotaxus, Austrotaxus, Pseudotaxus, Taxus) or fully (Cephalotaxus, Torreya) encloses it. The developmental origin of the aril is unclear, but it may represent a fused pair of swollen leaves.[1] The seeds in some genera are highly poisonous, containing the poisons taxine and taxol, but the mature aril that surrounds them is soft and juicy, often brightly coloured and sweet, but resinous-flavoured in others; it is eaten by birds which then disperse the hard seed undamaged in their droppings. However, if damaged the seeds could release their poisons, which is dangerous for humans.[3]

Distribution

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Species are mostly found in the tropics and temperate zones in the northern temperate. There are only a few species in the southern hemisphere.[2]

Classification

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Taxaceae is now generally included with all other conifers in the order Pinales, as DNA analysis has shown that the yews are phylogenetically nested in the Pinales,[4] a conclusion supported by micromorphology studies.[5] Formerly they were often treated as distinct from other conifers by placing them in a separate order Taxales. Ernest Henry Wilson referred to Taxaceae as "taxads" in his 1916 book.[6] Taxaceae is thought to be the sister group to Cupressaceae, from which it diverged during the early-mid Triassic. The clade comprising both is sister to Sciadopityaceae, which diverged from them during the early-mid Permian.[7] The oldest confirmed member of Taxaceae is Palaeotaxus rediviva from the earliest Jurassic (Hettangian) of Sweden. Fossils belonging to the living genus Amentotaxus from the Middle Jurassic of China indicate that Taxaceae had already substantially diversified during the Jurassic.[8]

The broadly defined Taxaceae (including Cephalotaxus) comprises six extant genera and about 30 species overall. Cephalotaxus is now included in Taxaceae, rather than being recognised as the core of its own family, Cephalotaxaceae, and particularly close to Amentotaxus and Torreya, forming a clade with them within Taxaceae,[9][10] though other studies have found it basal in the family.[11] Phylogenetic evidence strongly supports a very close relationship between Cephalotaxus and other members of Taxaceae,[12][13][14] and morphological differences between them are not substantial. Previous recognition of two distinct families, Taxaceae and Cephalotaxaceae (e.g.,[15]), was based on relatively minor morphological details: Taxaceae (excluding Cephalotaxus) has smaller mature seeds growing to 5–8 millimetres (0.20–0.31 in) in 6–8 months, that are not fully enclosed by the aril; in contrast, Cephalotaxus seeds have a longer maturation period (from 18 to 20 months), and larger mature seeds (12–40 millimetres (0.47–1.57 in)) fully enclosed by the aril. However, there are also very clear morphological connections between Cephalotaxus and other members of Taxaceae,[16][17] and considered in tandem with the phylogenetic evidence, there is no compelling need to recognize Cephalotaxus (or other genera in Taxaceae) as a distinct family.[12][13]

Phylogeny

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Multiple different phylogenies for the family have been suggested by different studies:

Phylogeny according to Ghimire & Heo, 2013.[9]

Phylogeny according to Byng, 2015.[10]

Phylogeny according to Leslie et al., 2018.[18][19]

Cephalotaxus harringtonia
Taxus brevifolia

Amentotaxus Pilg. – Catkin-yews

Austrotaxus Compton – New Caledonia yew

Cephalotaxus Siebold & Zucc. ex Endl. – Plum-yews

Pseudotaxus W.C.Cheng – White-berry yew

Taxus L. – Yews

Torreya Arn. – Torreyas, nutmeg-yews

Extinct genera

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Several genera have been described from the fossil record and placed within Taxaceae[21]

Footnotes

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  1. 1 2 3 4 Dörken, Veit Martin; Nimsch, Hubertus; Rudall, Paula J (2018-08-22). "Origin of the Taxaceae aril: evolutionary implications of seed-cone teratologies in Pseudotaxus chienii". Annals of Botany. 123 (1). Oxford University Press (OUP): 133–143. doi:10.1093/aob/mcy150. ISSN 0305-7364. PMC 6344100. PMID 30137225.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Phillips, Edwin Percy (1926). "Cycadaceae". The genera of South African flowering plants. Cape Town: Cape Times, Government Printers. Retrieved 11 June 2025.
  3. ↑ Yew Poisoning: MedLine Plus Medical Encyclopedia
  4. ↑ Chase, M. W.; Soltis, D. E.; et al. (1993). "Phylogenetics of Seed Plants: An Analysis of Nucleotide Sequences from the Plastid Gene rbcL" (PDF). Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden. 80 (3). JSTOR: 528. doi:10.2307/2399846. hdl:1969.1/179875. ISSN 0026-6493. JSTOR 2399846.
  5. ↑ Anderson, E.; Owens, J.N. (2003). "Analyzing the Reproductive Biology of Taxus: Should It be Included in Coniferales?". Acta Horticulturae (615). International Society for Horticultural Science (ISHS): 233–234. doi:10.17660/actahortic.2003.615.22. ISSN 0567-7572. Archived from the original on 2022-11-26. Retrieved 2021-06-22.
  6. ↑ Wilson, Ernest Henry (1916). The conifers and taxads of Japan. Issued December 30, 1916. Cambridge: University Press. doi:10.5962/bhl.title.17457.
  7. ↑ Stull, Gregory W.; Qu, Xiao-Jian; Parins-Fukuchi, Caroline; Yang, Ying-Ying; Yang, Jun-Bo; Yang, Zhi-Yun; Hu, Yi; Ma, Hong; Soltis, Pamela S.; Soltis, Douglas E.; Li, De-Zhu (July 19, 2021). "Gene duplications and phylogenomic conflict underlie major pulses of phenotypic evolution in gymnosperms". Nature Plants. 7 (8): 1015–1025. Bibcode:2021NatPl...7.1015S. doi:10.1038/s41477-021-00964-4. ISSN 2055-0278. PMID 34282286. S2CID 236141481.
  8. ↑ Dong, Chong; Shi, Gongle; Herrera, Fabiany; Wang, Yongdong; Herendeen, Patrick S; Crane, Peter R (2020-06-18). "Middle–Late Jurassic fossils from northeastern China reveal morphological stasis in the catkin-yew". National Science Review. 7 (11): 1765–1767. doi:10.1093/nsr/nwaa138. ISSN 2095-5138. PMC 8288717. PMID 34691509.
  9. 1 2 Ghimire, Balkrishna; Heo, Kweon (2014). "Cladistic analysis of Taxaceae s. l.". Plant Systematics and Evolution. 300 (2): 217–223. doi:10.1007/s00606-013-0874-y. ISSN 0378-2697. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
  10. 1 2 Byng, James W. (2015). The Gymnosperms Handbook. Plant Gateway. p. 2. ISBN 978-0-9929993-3-9.
  11. ↑ Elpe, Christoph; Knopf, Patrick; Stützel, Thomas; Schulz, Christian (2018). "Diversity and evolution of leaf anatomical characters in Taxaceae s.l.—fluorescence microscopy reveals new delimitating characters". Journal of Plant Research. 131 (1): 125–141. doi:10.1007/s10265-017-0973-x. ISSN 0918-9440. Retrieved 2026-06-09.
  12. 1 2 Quinn, C. J.; Price, R. A.; Gadek, P. A. (2002). "Familial Concepts and Relationships in the Conifer Based on rbcL and matK Sequence Comparisons". Kew Bulletin. 57 (3). JSTOR: 513. Bibcode:2002KewBu..57..513Q. doi:10.2307/4110984. ISSN 0075-5974. JSTOR 4110984. S2CID 83816639.
  13. 1 2 Rai, Hardeep S.; Reeves, Patrick A.; Peakall, Rod; Olmstead, Richard G.; Graham, Sean W. (2008). "Inference of higher-order conifer relationships from a multi-locus plastid data set". Botany. 86 (7). Canadian Science Publishing: 658–669. doi:10.1139/b08-062. ISSN 1916-2790. S2CID 14007221.
  14. ↑ One Thousand Plant Transcriptomes Initiative (2019). "One thousand plant transcriptomes and the phylogenomics of green plants". Nature. 574 (7780). Springer Science and Business Media LLC: 679–685. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1693-2. ISSN 0028-0836. PMC 6872490. PMID 31645766.
  15. ↑ Hart, Jeffrey A. (1987). "A cladistic analysis of conifers: preliminary results". Journal of the Arnold Arboretum. 68 (3): 269–307. doi:10.5962/p.185944. ISSN 0004-2625. JSTOR 43782212. S2CID 88860959.
  16. ↑ Doyle, James A. (1998). "Phylogeny of Vascular Plants". Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics. 29 (1). Annual Reviews: 567–599. doi:10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.29.1.567. ISSN 0066-4162. S2CID 85631751.
  17. ↑ Stützel, Thomas; Röwekamp, Iris (1999). "Female reproductive structures in Taxales". Flora. 194 (2). Elsevier BV: 145–157. Bibcode:1999FMDFE.194..145S. doi:10.1016/s0367-2530(17)30893-9. ISSN 0367-2530.
  18. ↑ Leslie, Andrew B.; Beaulieu, Jeremy; Holman, Garth; Campbell, Christopher S.; Mei, Wenbin; Raubeson, Linda R.; Mathews, Sarah; et al. (2018). "An overview of extant conifer evolution from the perspective of the fossil record". American Journal of Botany. 105 (9): 1531–1544. doi:10.1002/ajb2.1143. PMID 30157290.
  19. ↑ Leslie, Andrew B.; et al. (2018). "ajb21143-sup-0004-AppendixS4" (PDF). American Journal of Botany. 105 (9): 1531–1544. doi:10.1002/ajb2.1143. PMID 30157290. S2CID 52120430.
  20. ↑ Manchester, S.R. (1994). "Fruits and Seeds of the Middle Eocene Nut Beds Flora, Clarno Formation, Oregon". Palaeontographica Americana. 58: 30–31.
  21. ↑ "Taxaceae". www.ifpni.org. Retrieved 27 August 2025.
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