Cephalotaxaceae

Cephalotaxaceae, the plum-yew family, is a small family of conifers. According to recent phylogenetic analyses, it is a monophyletic family including only the single genus Cephalotaxus, while it was previously considered to include Torreya and Amentotaxus in the family. Cephalotaxaceae is closely allied to the yew family Taxaceae, and is often included in a wide interpretation of Taxaceae, based on phylogenetic evidence and close morphological similarities between them. Included species were restricted to east Asia, except for two species of Torreya found in the southwest and southeast of the United States; fossil evidence shows a much wider prehistorical Northern Hemisphere distribution. The most notable differences between Taxaceae and Cephalotaxaceae in its broad sense concerned the cone aril, which fully encloses the seeds of Cephalotaxaceae, the longer maturation of Cephalotaxaceae seeds, and the larger size of the mature seeds.

When considered as a distinct family, members of Cephalotaxaceae are much branched, small trees and shrubs. The leaves are spirally arranged, often twisted at the base to appear biranked. They are linear to lanceolate, and have pale green or white stomatal bands on the undersides. The plants are monoecious, subdioecious, or dioecious. The male cones are 4–25 mm long, and shed pollen in the early spring. The female cones are reduced, with one to a few ovuliferous scales, and one seed on each ovuliferous scale. As the seed matures, the ovuliferous scale develops into a fleshy aril fully enclosing the seed.