Pacific Yew

(Taxus brevifolia)

Color Photographs: © by and courtesy of Stephen J. Baskouf

Pacific Yew (Taxus brevifolia)

Identifying Characters: The red, fleshy cups enclosing the seeds and the distribution of the species will identify this species.

Similar Species: This is the only Taxus species within its range.

Measurements: Trunk angulate and commonly twisted or irregular, with a wide crown; height 50 feet and diameter 2 feet at breast height.

Seed Cones: Seeds about 0.25 inches long, elliptical, blunt-pointed, brown, and angulate; seed nearly completely enclosed by a red, cup-shaped receptacle about 0.4 inches in diameter; seed cones scattered and single on leafy twigs.

Needles: Needles in two rows, between 0.5 and 0.75 inches in length; flattened, pointed at the tip, and with a thin base, soft and pliable; color yellow-green above, green below with two white bands.

Bark: Bark purple-brown, thin, and smooth with red-brown papery scales.

Native Range: Pacific Yew grows in forests from the southern tip of southeast Alaska including Annette and Prince of Wales Island south through the Pacific Coast region of British Columbia, Vancouver and the Queen Charlotte Islands, and the Olympic Peninsula of Washington. It is rare in the Coast Range south of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington and north of the Umpqua River in Oregon, but occurs with greater frequency in the Coast Range in southern Oregon and northern California. Isolated occurrences are found as far south as Marin and San Mateo Counties in California. Pacific Yew occurs in scattered localities in the valleys between the Coast Range and Cascade Ranges of Oregon and Washington. In the Cascade Range, it is fairly common at low to moderate elevations, and on some sites in southern Oregon it is abundant. Pacific yew extends south through the Klamath Mountains of California, then southeasterly to the western slopes of the Sierra Nevada. Its southern limit is in Calaveras County. Farther inland, it grows on the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains in British Columbia, south into northern Idaho and western Montana, the Lewis Range in Montana, and isolated areas in eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon. In the South Fork of the Clearwater River basin in Idaho, Pacific Yew deviates from its role as a minor forest component and becomes a dominant on about 16 000 hectares (40,000 acres). (Silvics of North America. 1990. Agriculture Handbook 654.)

Habitat: Pacific Yew is most commonly found in moist soils along streams and in the bottom of canyons, sometimes as a understory tree in coniferous woods.

Note: The foliage and seeds of Pacific Yew and poisonous. the chemotheary drug Taxol is derived from this species. The wood is tough and flexible.