Taxus brevifolia Nutt.
 
FamilyTaxaceae — APG family: Taxaceae
Common namewestern yew
DescriptionDioecious shrub or small tree, up to 10 meters tall (at least in British Columbia), with horizontal or drooping branches; needles in two rows, shiny dark green above, pale beneath; seeds surrounded by juicy, scarlet, cuplike disk (aril).
EcologyUndergrowth of dense woods and thickets, usually very scattered. Broken line on circumpolar map indicates range of Taxus sp. occurring in Eurasia and North America, all closely related to T. brevifolia.
UsesScarlet disks are not poisonous, but seeds contain poisonous toxin, causing vomiting, diarrhea, and inflammation of urinary ducts and the uterus.
Hultén's Flora About

This is a digital representation of Eric Hultén’s ‘Flora of Alaska and Neighboring Territories: A Manual of the Vascular Plants’, which was published by Stanford University Press in 1968. The book was digitized by C. Webb (at UAMN) as part of the Flora of Alaska project, with funding by the US NSF (Grant 1759964 to Ickert-Bond & Webb), and with permission of Stanford University Press. Data and images © 1968 Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. Univ. Usage licence: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0. NB: You may find OCR errors; please refer to the hard-copy if in doubt.