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Cephalotaxus
Also called Plum Yews
Plum yews are a genus of 11 species of shrubs and small trees from eastern Asia, closely related to yews and grown mainly as ornamental shrubs or hedges in gardens. Their key care point is a shaded or partly shaded site with well-drained, moist soil, as they dislike hot sun and waterlogging.
Cephalotaxus, commonly called plum-yew or cowtail-pine, is a genus of conifers comprising 11 species, either considered the only member of the family Cephalotaxaceae, or in the Taxaceae when that family is considered in a broad sense. The genus is endemic to eastern Asia, though fossil evidence shows it had a wider Northern Hemisphere distribution in the past. The species are shrubs and small trees reaching 1.0–10 metres (3–33 ft) (rarely to 20 metres (66 ft)) tall.
Cephalotaxus species produce cephalotaxine, an alkaloid. Parry et al 1980 provides evidence that cephalotaxine is a phenylethylisoquinoline. However, they also find this genus to be unable to incorporate cinnamic acid into cephalotaxine, and incorporation of cinnamic acid is usually a step in phenylethylisoquinoline syntheses, throwing the phenylethylisoquinoline theory in to question.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Cephalotaxus by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
