Plant gold-- Taxus chinensis

Taxus is a species left over from the Quaternary glacier, known as the "living fossil" of the plant kingdom, is a rare and endangered plant in the world, and it is listed as a first-class protected plant in China. When the yew fruit is ripe, the red fruit is full of branches and colorful, which is named because it is very similar to the "Acacia bean" in the south. It is not only an important timber tree species, ornamental tree species, but also a precious medicinal plant. In 1989, the United States took the lead in the detection of paclitaxel from the substances contained in Taxus. Experiments have shown that paclitaxel has a unique anti-tumor mechanism and significant anti-tumor effect, and is considered to be the most promising anticancer drug. With the deepening of clinical medical research, a variety of medicinal values of paclitaxel have been found.

Taxus is a large evergreen tree of the Taxus family. There are 11 species in the world and 5 species in China, namely, Taxus mairei, Taxus yunnanensis and Taxus yunnanensis. Due to the narrow distribution of yew, coupled with man-made illegal logging, it is now on the verge of endangerment. At present, there are only 10 million wild yew trees in the world. An American expert who studies paclitaxel said that even if all the existing yew in the world were cut down, the extracted paclitaxel would only save 125000 lives of cancer patients. Therefore, in order to protect the few natural resources of yew, all felling has been banned. At present, the international market price of paclitaxel with 98% purity is US $40 to US $600000 per dry gram, while the price of paclitaxel with a purity of 70% in China is between 160 and 1.8 million yuan / kg, which is more expensive than gold.

Due to the increasing market demand for paclitaxel and the continuous heating up of paclitaxel project development, the wild yew resources in China have been destroyed. With the continuous strengthening of global protection measures for wild yew resources and China's severe crackdown on illegal felling of Taxus mairei, it is impossible to use wild resources to produce taxol, and resources have become a bottleneck restricting the development of paclitaxel production and processing enterprises. In order to catch up with the world trend of research and development of Taxus, many scientific research institutions and factories in China have carried out artificial cultivation of Taxus and clinical trial of paclitaxel, and made a breakthrough. At present, China's Fujian, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan, Heilongjiang and other places, artificial cultivation of yew has a large-scale base, the number of planting plants is about 5 million, and the annual production of paclitaxel is about 200kg. It is estimated that in the next three years, the artificial planting area of Taxus mairei in China will reach 20, 000 mu, with more than 20 million plants.

Taxus mairei is naturally distributed in the southeast of Hunan Province, mostly Taxus mairei, but after the catastrophe in recent years, the resources have been nearly exhausted. In order to save and develop this rare and endangered tree species, the scientific and technological personnel of the Forestry Institute of Xinning County of the province began to study the biological characteristics and forest management techniques of Taxus mairei in 1990, and achieved good results. Scientists and technicians use the method of outdoor sand moistening and variable temperature storage to break the seed dormancy period, and cultivate Taxus mairei by raising seedlings under the forest and moss, which has attracted the attention of relevant experts at home and abroad.