Chinese Plum Yew

Shrubs or small trees to 12(-15) m tall; trunk to 1.2 m d.b.h.; bark reddish, gray, or grayish brown. Leafy branchlets elliptic, oblong, or more usually obovate-rectangular in outline, plane, 5-12(-18) × 4-8(-10) cm. Leaves borne ± perpendicular to branchlet axis, or directed forward at 50-85° ; petiole 0-1 (-2.5) mm; blade green adaxially, linear or linear-lanceolate, ± parallel sided almost throughout length and tapered from near apex only, or tapered from point above middle of blade but well below apex, straight or very slightly falcate, flat, (1-)1.8-5(-7) cm × 2-3.5(-4) mm, 7-10 × as long as wide, leathery but relatively soft, midvein 0.2-0.6 mm wide abaxially, stomatal bands white (very rarely green), 0.8-1.2 mm wide, of (12-)13-15(-18) rows of stomata, 2-4 × as wide as midvein, marginal bands 0.1-0.3 mm wide, base cuneate or rounded-cuneate, symmetric or very slightly asymmetric, margin narrowly revolute, apex acute and shortly mucronate to long acuminate. Pollen-cone capitula globose, 4-7 mm in diam., each of 6 or 7 pinkish brown cones; peduncle ca. 3 mm, naked except at apex; microsporophylls 4-11, each with (2 or)3(or 4) pollen sacs. Seed cones solitary or borne 2-5(-8) together; peduncle 3-8 mm; seed scales grayish green, ovate, apex shortly cuspidate. Aril red or reddish purple when ripe, 1.6-2.5 × 0.8-1.6 cm, with 6 prominent, longitudinal ridges. Seeds ovoid or obovoid to ellipsoid, 1.8-2.5 × 0.9-1.2 cm, apex mucronate or cuspidate. Pollination Mar-Jun, seed maturity (Jun-)Jul-Nov.

S Anhui, Fujian, S Gansu, SW Guangdong, Guangxi, NE Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, S Jiangsu, Jiangxi, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, C and N Taiwan, SE Yunnan, Zhejiang; cultivated in Shandong.

* Montane coniferous or mixed forests, thickets, stream valleys, valley bottoms, open situations, on granite, sandstone, and limestone substrates; 600-3000(-3200) m.

Cephalotaxus sinensis is a coniferous shrub or small tree in the family Taxaceae. It is native to central and southern China.

Some botanists consider Cephalotaxus koreana and C. sinensis to be synonymous with Cephalotaxus harringtonii.