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Taxus brevifolia

 
Taxus Brevifolia

 
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Taxus brevifolia
 
 
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Taxus brevifolia (Pacific Yew or Western Yew) is a conifer
Pinophyta

The conifers, division Pinophyta, also known as division Coniferae, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxon within the Plant. They are Conifer cone-bearing seed plants with Vascular plant tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being trees with just a few being shrubs....
 native to the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America . There are several partially overlapping definitions but the term Pacific Northwest should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada....
 of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. It ranges from southernmost Alaska
Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
 south to central California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, mostly in the Pacific Coast Ranges
Pacific Coast Ranges

The Pacific Coast Ranges are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the west coast of North America from Alaska south to northern and central Mexico....
, but with an isolated disjunct population in southeast British Columbia
British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's Provinces and territories of Canada and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ....
 and south to central Idaho
Idaho

The State of Idaho is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and Capital is Boise, Idaho....
.

s a small to medium-sized evergreen
Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
 tree
TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
, growing 10-15 m tall and with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter, rarely more.

It has thin scaly brown bark
BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
.






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Taxus brevifolia (Pacific Yew or Western Yew) is a conifer
Pinophyta

The conifers, division Pinophyta, also known as division Coniferae, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxon within the Plant. They are Conifer cone-bearing seed plants with Vascular plant tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being trees with just a few being shrubs....
 native to the Pacific Northwest
Pacific Northwest

The Pacific Northwest is a region in the northwest of North America . There are several partially overlapping definitions but the term Pacific Northwest should not be confused with the Northwest Territory or the Northwest Territories of Canada....
 of North America
North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
. It ranges from southernmost Alaska
Alaska

Alaska is the largest U.S. state of the United States by area; it is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait....
 south to central California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, mostly in the Pacific Coast Ranges
Pacific Coast Ranges

The Pacific Coast Ranges are the series of mountain ranges that stretch along the west coast of North America from Alaska south to northern and central Mexico....
, but with an isolated disjunct population in southeast British Columbia
British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's Provinces and territories of Canada and is famed for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu ....
 and south to central Idaho
Idaho

The State of Idaho is a U.S. state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States of America. The state's largest city and Capital is Boise, Idaho....
.

Characteristics

It is a small to medium-sized evergreen
Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
 tree
TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
, growing 10-15 m tall and with a trunk up to 50 cm diameter, rarely more.

It has thin scaly brown bark
BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
. The leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
 are lanceolate, flat, dark green, 1-3 cm long and 2-3 mm broad, arranged spirally on the stem, but with the leaf bases twisted to align the leaves in two flat rows either side of the stem except on erect leading shoots where the spiral arrangement is more obvious.

The seed cones
Conifer cone

A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the plant sexuality structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds....
 are highly modified, each cone containing a single seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
 4-7 mm long partly surrounded by a modified scale which develops into a soft, bright red berry
Berry

In everyday English, a berry is a broad term for any small edible fruit. Most berries are juicy, round or semi-oblong, brightly coloured, sweet or sour, and don't have a stone or pit....
-like structure called an aril
Aril

An aril is any specialized outgrowth from the funiculus that covers or is attached to the seed. It is sometimes applied to any appendage or thickening of the seed coat in flowering plants, such as the edible parts of the mangosteen and pomegranate fruit, or the mace of the nutmeg seed....
, 8-15 mm long and wide and open at the end. The arils are mature 6-9 months after pollination, and with the seed contained are eaten by thrushes
Thrush (bird)

The Thrushes, family Turdidae, are a group of passerine birds that occur mainly but not exclusively in the Old World....
 and other bird
Bird

Birds are wing, Bipedalismal, endothermic , vertebrate animals that lay egg . There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most numerous tetrapod vertebrates....
s, which disperse the hard seeds undamaged in their droppings; maturation of the arils is spread over 2-3 months, increasing the chances of successful seed dispersal. The male cones are globose, 3-6 mm diameter, and shed their pollen
Pollen

Pollen is a fine to coarse powder consisting of Gametophyte , which produce the male gametes of spermatophyta. A hard coat covering the pollen grain protects the sperm cells during the process of their movement between the stamens of the flower to the pistil of the next flower....
 in early spring. It is mostly dioecious
Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, but occasional individuals can be variably monoecious
Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
, or change sex with time.

Medicinal uses

The chemotherapy
Chemotherapy

Chemotherapy, in its most general sense, refers to treatment of disease by chemicals that kill cells, specifically those of micro-organisms or cancer....
 drug paclitaxel
Paclitaxel

Paclitaxel is a mitotic inhibitor used in cancer chemotherapy. It was discovered in a National Cancer Institute program at the Research Triangle Institute in 1967 when Monroe E....
, used in breast
Breast cancer

Breast cancer is a cancer that starts in the Cell of the breast in women and men. Worldwide, breast cancer is the second most common type of cancer after lung cancer and the fifth most common cause of cancer death....
, ovarian
Ovarian cancer

Ovarian cancer is a malignant tumor arising from an ovary. Although ovarian cancer is known to occur in many species, the majority of the medical literature and the focus of this article is on ovarian cancer in humans....
 and lung cancer
Lung cancer

Lung cancer is a disease of uncontrolled cell growth in tissue of the lung. This growth may lead to metastasis, which is the invasion of adjacent tissue and infiltration beyond the lungs....
 treatment, is derived from Taxus brevifolia. As it was already becoming increasingly scarce when its chemotherapeutic potential was realized, the Pacific Yew was never commercially harvested from its habitat in the large scale; the widespread use of the paclitaxel was enabled when a semi-synthetic pathway was developed from extracts of cultivated yews of other species. Unlicenced pharmaceutical production use of closely-related wild yew species in India and China may be threatening some of those species.

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