Taiwan Catkin Yew

The wood is used for making furniture, farm implements, utensils, and handicrafts; the species is a also cultivated as an ornamental tree.

Trees to 10 m tall; trunk to 3 cm d.b.h.; main branches few. Leafy branchlets broadly ovate-rectangular in outline, (2.5-)7-12 × 14-18 cm, axis green in 1st and 2nd years, becoming brown striped in 3rd year, quadrangular or subterete. Leaves borne at 55-70° to branchlet axis, subsessile; petiole (if present) thick, to 1 mm; blade dark green adaxially, lanceolate or linear-lanceolate, usually slightly but distinctly falcate, 5-8.5 cm × 5-10 mm, leathery, midvein 1-1.5 mm wide abaxially, with a narrow, green band ca. 0.5 mm wide on either side, stomatal bands white, ca. 2 mm wide, very dense (ca. 30 rows), ca. 2 × as wide as marginal bands, marginal bands 0.6-1.6 mm wide, base broadly cuneate or obtuse, margin revolute, apex long acuminate. Pollen-cone racemes borne (1-)3 or 4(or 5) together, ca. 3 cm; cones in 7-9 pairs, close together, subsessile (peduncle less than 1 mm), subglobose; bracts usually 7(-11) in 2-4 rows, keeled distal ones ca. 15 × 5 mm; microsporophylls ca. 10, 1.5-2 cm, recurved at maturity, each with 5-8 pollen sacs. Aril reddish yellow when ripe. Seed finally reddish purple, obovoid-ellipsoid, 2-2.5 × 0.9-1.1 cm, apex mucronulate; peduncle 1.5-2 cm, recurved at maturity; 2 rows of basal scales persistent. Pollination Feb, seed maturity Dec.

SE Taiwan

* Scattered in damp, shady places in tropical rainforests and broad-leaved subtropical forests, ravines, cliffs; 500-1300 m.

Amentotaxus yunnanensis H. L. Li var. formosana (H. L. Li) Silba.

Amentotaxus formosana, the Taiwan catkin yew, is a species of conifer in the family Taxaceae. It is a small tree to 10 m (33 ft) tall, with a slender trunk. It was previously recognised as a variant of Amentotaxus argotaenia.

Amentotaxus formosana is found only in Taiwan where it only occurs in four localities of cloud forest in the Hengchun Peninsula, in the extreme south of the island. IUCN considers A. formosana as critically endangered because of its populations are small and threatened by habitat loss. The populations are characterized by very low levels of genetic diversity.

The wood is used for making furniture and handicrafts, etc., and the species is sometimes cultivated as an ornamental tree.