Introduction to Seedling Encyclopedia-- Taxus mairei

Latin family name Taxaceae

Chinese family name Taxaceae

Latin generic name Enpcontent

Chinese generic name Taxus

Chinese Taxus mairei

Scientific name (Taxuschinensis (Pilger) Rehd.

Alias yew, red cypress pine, Guanyin fir, etc.

There are 11 species of Taxus in the world, distributed from temperate to tropical regions of the northern hemisphere. There are 4 species and 1 variety originating in China, namely, Taxus chinensis, Taxus cuspidata, Taxus yunnanensis, Taxus yunnanensis, and Taxus chinensis var. mairei. The introduced Taxus mairei, which was introduced from Canada in the mid-1990s, is now cultivated in Sichuan, Guangxi, Lingui, Shandong and other places.

Taxus chinensis is one of the species of Taxus mairei. Taxus chinensis (scientific name Taxusmairei) is a relic plant of Quaternary glacial period, which is a rare and endangered species in the world. Taxus chinensis is endemic to China, distributed in southern Gansu, southern Shaanxi, western Hubei, Sichuan and other places. Central China is mostly found in the undisturbed environment above 1000 meters in the upper part of the mountain. South China and Southwest China are mostly found in the mountain deciduous broad-leaved forest of 1500m to 3000m, relatively concentrated in the Hengduan Mountains and the surrounding mountains of Sichuan Basin, and also distributed in northern Guangxi, eastern Guizhou and southern Hunan.

It is listed as a first-class key protected plant in our country.

Morphological characteristics

Evergreen trees, 30m in height and 1m in dry diameter. Leaves spiral, base twisted into distichous, striate. Slightly curved, 1-2.5cm long, 2-2.5mm wide, leaf margin slightly curved, leaf tip acuminate, leaf back with 2 broad yellowish green or gray-green stomatal bands, dense small bumps on midvein, leaf margin green belt pole kiln. The male cones are solitary in leaf axils, and the ovules of female cones are solitary at the top of the lateral short axis in the upper part of the flower axis, with a disc-shaped aril at the base. The seed is oblate-ovoid, 2-angled, navel ovoid, with red cup-shaped aril, maturing from September to November.

Biological characteristics

Sexual preference grows in warmer and rainy places and is a typical negative tree species. Often in the second and third layers of trees under the canopy, scattered, there is basically no pure forest, and very few clumps are distributed. Only in well-drained acid gray brown soil, yellow soil, yellow brown soil good growth, seedlings like shade, avoid the sun. Its seed coat is thick and is in a state of deep dormancy. It can only germinate after two winters and one summer in the natural state, and the ability of natural regeneration is weak. Reproduce with seeds. The dormancy period of seed embryo is long, and after seed collection, it must be stored in wet sand at low temperature, sow in spring, and the germination period can be extended to the second year. It can also be propagated by cutting.

Economic use

Taxus mairei is widely distributed in China, but its resource reserves are small. Mainly used in medicine, ornamental, scientific research and so on.

I. Medical uses

Paclitaxel and its derivatives extracted from Taxus chinensis plants are one of the best anticancer drugs in the world and have high development and utilization value.

Taxol was extracted from Taxus in 1971. Because taxol, the extract of Taxus (TAXOLPACLITAXEL), has a unique anticancer mechanism, Dr. BRODER, director of the National Institute of Oncology, said that paclitaxel has been considered as a new anticancer drug with good curative effect and little side effect for many kinds of cancer in the past 15 years after doxorubicin and cisplatin. Since the 1980s, the United States, Britain, Russia, South Korea and China have carried out in-depth research one after another. The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved it for clinical use in 1992. The United States took the lead in applying the research results to medical clinic and achieved remarkable clinical results in the treatment of various cancers. It has been proved to be effective for a variety of cancers, especially for ovarian cancer and breast cancer, with a cure rate of 33% and an effective rate of 75%. Paclitaxel is currently recognized as the best drug for the treatment of cancer in the world. Since then, mankind has made a new breakthrough in the field of anti-cancer. So so far and for quite a long time to come, the most favorable weapon for human beings to fight cancer can only be paclitaxel. The annual production of paclitaxel in the world is only about 250kg, the market supply and demand is out of balance, the price is very expensive, up to more than 200,000 US dollars per kilogram, so the yew is known as "plant gold".

Paclitaxel is mainly extracted from the roots, barks, stems and leaves of Taxus chinensis. Due to the complexity of the extraction process, it is difficult to remove the components of chlorophyll in the original solution, coupled with the large investment in equipment and the lack of raw materials, the conventional extraction of paclitaxel has developed relatively late in our country and just started in the 1990s. Due to the slow growth rate and poor regeneration ability of Taxus under natural conditions, there has been no large-scale yew raw material forest base in the world for a long time.

Second, ornamental use

Taxus chinensis has a beautiful shape, evergreen all the year round, and the color matching of red and green during fruit ripening is intoxicating, which can be widely used in soil and water conservation.

Holding and horticultural viewing are excellent tree species for improving the ecological environment and building beautiful mountains and rivers in the new century, and are now often used for high-grade courtyard greening.

III. Scientific research purposes

Taxus mairei is a rare and endangered plant left over from the glacier in the fourth century, which is rarely distributed in the world and is listed as a national first-class key protected plant, which has high scientific research value in many aspects.

IV. Other uses

Taxus chinensis is a precious timber species with fine wood, bright red color, tenacity and durability. Commonly used for carving, making high-grade furniture, handicrafts, etc.; wood is rot-resistant and can be used for civil engineering; seed oil content is up to 60%, which has special development value.