An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States, Canada and the British Possessions/Taxaceae
Trees or shrubs, resin-bearing except Taxus. Leaves evergreen or deciduous, linear, or in several exotic genera broad or sometimes fan-shaped, the pollen-sacs and ovules borne in separate clusters or solitary. Perianth wanting. Stamens much as in the Pinaceae. Ovules with either one or two integuments; when two, the outer one fleshy, when only one, its outer part fleshy. Fruit drupe-like or rarely a cone.
About 10 genera and 75 species, of wide geographic distribution, most numerous in the southern hemisphere. The Maiden-hair Tree, Ginkgo biloba, of China and Japan, with fan-shaped leaves, is an interesting relative of the group, now much planted for ornament.
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1. Táxus [Tourn.] L. Sp. Pl. 1040. 1753.
Evergreen trees or shrubs, with spirally arranged short-petioled linear flat mucronate leaves, spreading so as to appear 2-ranked, and axillary and solitary, sessile or subsessile very small aments; staminate aments consisting of a few scaly bracts and 5-8 stamens, their filaments united to the middle; anthers 4-6-celled. Ovules solitary, axillary, erect, subtended by a fleshy, annular disk, which is bracted at the base. Fruit consisting of the fleshy disk which becomes cup-shaped, red, and nearly encloses the bony seed. [Name ancient.]
About 6 species, natives of the north temperate zone. Besides the following, another occurs in Florida, one in Mexico and one on the Pacific Coast. Type species: Taxus baccata L.
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1. Taxus canadènsis Marsh. American Yew. Ground-hemlock. Fig. 158. | |
Taxus baccata var. minor Michx. Fl. Bor. Am. 2: 245. 1803. Taxus canadensis Marsh. Arb. Am. 151. 1785. Taxus minor Britton, Mem. Torr. Club, 5: 19. 1893. | |
A low straggling shrub, seldom over 5° high. Leaves dark green on both sides, narrowly linear, mucronate at the apex, narrowed at the base, 6″–10″ long, nearly 1″ wide, persistent on the twigs in drying; the staminate aments globose, 1″ long, usually numerous; ovules usually few; fruit red and pulpy, resinous, oblong, nearly 3″ high, the top of the seed not covered by the fleshy integument. | |
In woods, Newfoundland to Manitoba, south to New Jersey, in the Alleghenies to Virginia, and to Minnesota and Iowa. Ascends to 2500 ft. in the Adirondacks. April-May. Called also Dwarf Yew, Shin-wood, Creeping Hemlock. Very different from the European Yew, T. baccata, in habit, the latter becoming a large forest tree, as does the Oregon Yew, T. brevifolia. |