Yews (Taxaceae)

This group gathers Conifers and Other Gymnosperms subcategory members belonging to the yew family, Taxaceae, unusual among conifers for bearing seeds inside a soft, brightly colored, berry-like structure called an aril rather than in a true woody cone. It spans the true yews of the genus Taxus, slow-growing, long-lived trees whose foliage and seeds, aril aside, are highly toxic, a source of both historical poisoning cases and, more recently, cancer-fighting compounds extracted from the bark and needles, and the torreyas of the genus Torreya, including the California nutmeg and Florida torreya, whose seeds superficially resemble the unrelated culinary nutmeg. It also gathers the Japanese plum yew, Cephalotaxus, placed by some classifications in its own small family but close enough to the yews to sit naturally alongside them here, and Austrotaxus, the sole yew-family genus native to New Caledonia.