Taxus brevifolia

Taxus brevifolia PACIFIC YEW

Higher Taxonomy

Family: Taxaceae

Common Name: YEW FAMILY
Habit: Shrub or tree, evergreen; dioecious. Leaf: alternate, linear, decurrent, tip acute; not in bundles, generally appearing 2-ranked. Pollen Cone: with stamen-like structures. Seed: 1 at tip of short twig, partly or completely enclosed by subtending aril; coat woody; cotyledons 2.
Genera In Family: 5 genera, 16 species: northern hemisphere; some Taxus species widely used in landscaping.
eFlora Treatment Author: Matthew H. Hils
Scientific Editor: Douglas H. Goldman, Bruce G. Baldwin.

Genus: Taxus

View Description

Common Name: YEW
Habit: Shrub, small tree. Stem: trunk generally of irregular width; branches +- drooping; wood not aromatic. Pollen Cone: 4--8 stamen-like structures in a stalked cluster.
Etymology: (Latin, probably from Greek: bow, for which wood used)
Reference: Spjut 2007 J Bot Res Inst Texas 1:203--289

Taxus brevifolia Nutt.

NATIVE
Stem: trunk to 18(25) m, < 0.6(1.2) m wide; bark shredding, outer scales +- purple to +- purple-brown, inner scales +- red to +- red-purple. Leaf: pale green adaxially, shiny +- yellow-green abaxially. Seed: 5--6.5 mm, ovoid; coat smooth.
Ecology: Generally dense, mixed-evergreen forest, lower slopes or canyon bottoms; Elevation: 10--2150 m. Bioregional Distribution: NW, CaR, n&c SN, SnFrB; Distribution Outside California: to Alaska, western Montana. Note: See Spjut (2007) for alternative treatment of Taxus in California.
Synonyms: Taxus brevifolia var. polychaeta Spjut; Taxus brevifolia var. reptaneta Spjut; Taxus brevifolia Nutt. var. brevifolia
Jepson eFlora Author: Matthew H. Hils
Reference: Spjut 2007 J Bot Res Inst Texas 1:203--289
Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange)

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Next taxon: Torreya

Botanical illustration including Taxus brevifolia

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Citation for this treatment: Matthew H. Hils 2012, Taxus brevifolia, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=46109, accessed on April 19, 2024.

Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2024, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on April 19, 2024.

Taxus brevifolia

Taxus brevifolia

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Geographic subdivisions for Taxus brevifolia: NW, CaR, n&c SN, SnFrB	MAP CONTROLS 1. You can change the display of the base map layer control box in the upper right-hand corner. 2. County and Jepson Region polygons can be turned off and on using the check boxes.

(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurence).	Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria. MAP LEGEND View all CCH records All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window. Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location. Yellow markers indicate records that may provide evidence for eFlora range revision or may have georeferencing or identification issues. READ ABOUT YELLOW FLAGS CCH collections by month Duplicates counted once; synonyms included. Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA. Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).