The Changing Fortunes of the Taiwan Yew

When logging was at its height in Taiwan, the Taiwan yew was not valued; when logging was banned, it became many people's favorite; now that the price of its timber has declined again, it has come to be seen as one of the plants which may make the greatest contribution to human medicine in the next century.

（facing page） A lion carved from Southeast Asian yew.

How did this three-part story of the Taiwan yew come about?

(Trilogy of the Taiwan Yew: Prologue)

In April of this year, the ROC Department of Health officially authorized imports into Taiwan of the anti-cancer drug taxol in injectable form. Taxol is a needle-shaped crystalline substance which was first extracted from the bark of the Pacific yew (Taxus brevifolia) by the National Cancer Institute (NCI) in the USA in 1966. The drug inhibits the growth of cancer cells, and in human trials in terminal ovarian cancer patients, tumor size was reduced in 30% of cases. Furthermore, the drug's side effects were not as extreme as those of conventional chemotherapy. By 1989 an injectable form of taxol had been developed for use in the treatment of ovarian and breast cancers.

Since the 1960s, the NCI has screened over 100,000 plants for anti-cancer drugs. But to date taxol remains the one on which the highest hopes are placed, and it has even been predicted that the Pacific yew will be "the plant which makes the greatest contribution to the human race at the turn of the 21st century."

What deters insects, may deter cancer

Like the Pacific yew, the Taiwan yew (Taxus mairei) is a member of the genus Taxus. Three years ago, when researchers from Union Chemical Laboratories (UCL), one of the research organizations under the umbrella of the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), collected foliage from the Taiwan yew for chemical analysis, they discovered that it contained no less taxol than the bark of the Pacific yew. This is especially significant because if the tree's bark is removed to extract taxol, the flow of nutrients in the sap is interrupted and the tree cannot survive. If the drug could be extracted from the foliage, the yew could be used sustainably. However, the amount of taxol in the leaves of the Pacific yew is very small. Hence the Taiwan yew has attracted growing attention both inside and outside the ROC, and American researchers have several times asked the Taiwan Forestry Bureau (TFB) for Taiwan yew foliage, in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the concentration and medicinal effectiveness of the taxol in it.

Taxol is a "secondary metabolite" of the yews' metabolism. Since plants are immobile, they have to protect themselves against environmental pressures such as insects or low temperatures by secreting various substances. A secondary metabolite is a substance not needed for growth, produced from the breakdown of proteins and hydrocarbons. For instance, berberine, which is secreted by goldenthread (Coptis spp), is a secondary metabolite. Berberine is incredibly bitter, and its purpose is to prevent insects biting the plant. Humans already widely use plants' secondary metabolites to produce such things as tranquilizers, emulsifiers and disinfectants. Another example is phellodendrine, found in the Taiwan cork-tree (Phellodendron amurense var. wilson-ii), which is used as an anti-inflammatory.

According to historical records, during the Roman Empire a commander committed suicide by eating yew. In the Western world, it is a common occurrence for horses, cattle, sheep and even dogs which eat yew by mistake to suffer symptoms such as protracted vomiting, fever, and dilated pupils. However, just as fire can be used to fight fire, after appropriate processing and in controlled doses, yew can also save lives. Yew has long been used in folk remedies in China, and Kan Wei-sung notes in his book Pharmacological Botany that yew root reduces blood sugar, and can be used to treat diabetes and nephritis. In mainland China there is also a popular tradition of using yew leaves to treat scabies, and yew seeds to treat roundworms. Before the anti-cancer properties of the Pacific yew were discovered in the US, there had long been reports of American Indians using the Pacific yew in remedies for inflammations.

(Part I: The Logging Era)

In fact, before the yew was shown to contain a tumor-inhibiting substance, it had long been protected in Taiwan as a rare species. But going back 20 years, no-one in their wildest dreams would ever have believed that one day the Taiwan yew would be so sought after. One botanist recalls: "Laughable as it may sound, in the old days at logging yards anywhere in Taiwan, once all the high-grade timber had been sold and then all the second-grade stuff, the 'scrap' wood which hardly anyone was interested in, was yew." At that time, yew wood was not considered suitable for making utensils. The only thing it was thought fit for was to be burnt to make charcoal. But big yews left standing in the forests were put to another use: with their well-developed root systems, they could be used as anchoring points when moving timber: steel cables would be run around them to haul together the logs from felled trees.

Around 1991 the policy of ending logging of virgin forest was first implemented, and this finally gave some breathing space to the populations of many of Taiwan's tree species which had been most highly prized for the quality of their timber, such as the Taiwan red cypress (Chamaecyparis formo-sensis), the Taiwan cypress (Chamae-cyparis obtusa var. formosana), the keaki (Zelkova serrata) or the Formosan incense cedar (Calocedrus formosana). But for the Taiwan yew, which had not even made it onto the list of second-grade timbers, its greatest nightmare began.

According to statistics from the TFB's Hualien Forest Management Office, from 1989 to 1992 the tree species which suffered the most illegal logging in the forests under the office's management was the yew, with losses of timber to a value approaching NT$20 million being recorded.

Great talents are difficult to employ

Manuals of Taiwan's tree species describe the Taiwan yew as "a tree which can reach a trunk diameter of 100 cm, but which grows extremely slowly." TFRI staff calculating the ages of illegally felled trees say that even "saplings" with trunks only 15 cm in diameter may in some cases be as much as 200 years old. The trees' appearance belies their age, and the timber is much finer grained and denser than most of Taiwan's high-grade timber species.

Because the yew grows so slowly, its wood is especially hard and strong. Hsieh Sung-yuan, a worker at Nantou Forest Management Office's Puli forestry station, says that an axe blow at fallen wood in the mountain forests usually brings forth a hollow sound, but if you swing an axe at a yew which has been lying on the ground for decades, the blade will still lodge in the wood so firmly that you can barely pull it out-"There isn't a tree in these hills which grows more solid than that one."

But this most robust of plants in the forest is no winner in the straightness league. Among the yew's extensive root system and twisting trunk, one is hard put to find a straight length of timber anywhere, so from the craftsman's point of view the yew does not have a good shape, and it is not easy to make furniture from it. This and the fact that yew wood's tremendous weight makes it difficult to transport explains why in the past it was classed as a low-grade timber and simply chopped down to clear it away. Even today, forestry workers love to recount how in days gone by, because the yew's wood is so hard, loggers who came across a yew tree would consider it a waste of effort to try to cut it down.

(Part II: The Ban on Logging)

If we say that "a weed is just a plant whose value has not yet been recognized," then in 1986 the Taiwan yew finally ended its time as a "weed." In former times, because the yew's wood was not considered straight enough, it was not valued for making furniture or other utensils. But once people in Taiwan were well clothed and well fed, and their aspirations turned from the simply utilitarian towards a desire for valuable and unusual artistic artefacts, what had formerly been seen as the yew's defects now became its virtues. The wood's twisting grain gives unlimited scope for a sculptor's artistic expression. Because in the past the yew lacked economic value, it was not replaced by artificial replanting after logging, so that with the numbers of its wild population declining, it now gained an extra rarity value.

An innocent bystander suffers

As the yew's Chinese name hongdou-shan or "red-bean fir" suggests, its heartwood has a natural red sheen the color of adzuki beans, while the outer sapwood is yellowish-white. Sculptor Fan Kang-lung of Sanyi says that the contrast of the red and white gives the sculptor scope to develop many different themes, such as people or animals amid flurrying snow, a pale sky, an old man's white hair and whiskers, or the boddhisattva Guanyin in a white robe. There is almost no other timber which shares this quality, and this is why for a time sculptures made from Taiwan yew wood commanded astounding, astronomical prices. At an exhibition of yew sculptures four years ago, a life-sized Guanyin statue was sold for NT$10 million, making the sculptor's fortune overnight.

The sudden fashion for wanting art works and furniture in nothing but yew wood led to all kinds of bizarre illegal logging practices. Apart from the Hualien forestry district in eastern Taiwan, which suffered the heaviest losses, many reports of illegal logging of yew also emerged from the Tachia River basin in central Taiwan. Amid the vast expanse of mountains, the villains stayed a step ahead of all the law enforcers' efforts. Because yew wood is so heavy, it cannot easily be smuggled down the mountains. But the "mountain rats" (illegal loggers) discovered that they could bid for fallen yew wood, and they hacked down huge amounts of wood which they simply left lying. When the forestry workers patrolled the mountains and transported the "fallen" wood down to the plains for sale by public tender, the "mountain rats" would put in high bids and thus take easy pickings.

At one tender sale put on in 1989 by Hualien Forest Management Office, a buyer intent on acquiring a particular yew bid a price of NT$380,000 per cubic meter. The bid was accepted and the tree was sold for NT$1.8 million, setting a new record tender price for illegally felled wood in Taiwan. This case stirred the officials of the Taiwan provincial government and the members of the Provincial Assembly and the Legislative Yuan into action. To stamp out the trade in yew wood, the next year they made the yew the first and only tree species in Taiwan to be completely banned from tender sale.

The Taiwan yew's meteoric rise to popularity not only brought a crisis of survival for the species itself, but also affected an "innocent bystander." In Taiwan's mountains there grows a tree called the Formosan cowtail pine (Cephalotaxus wilsoniana) which became a target for illegal loggers for a simple but perhaps unprecedented reason: with its linear leaves and spreading habit it looks so much like the Taiwan yew that even forestry workers are often taken in, so it was often sacrificed in the yew's stead. Many "mountain rats" would start cutting after only a cursory glance at the tree, and by the time they discovered to their disappointment that the wood did not have the adzuki bean color of the Taiwan yew, it would be too late for the cowtail pine, which would already be lying dead on the ground. The Formosan cowtail pine had not been very numerous to begin with, and with so many being innocently sacrificed in mistake for the Taiwan yew, the TFB had no choice but to protect it by listing it as a rare species.

Previously the TFB had paid little attention to the yew and had not specifically surveyed it. The head of the TFB's conservation department says that today, the yews in the various forest management zones have been individually numbered, and the loss of any one means big trouble for those charged with their protection. To damp down the feverish demand for the yew, in 1991 the government took the step of authorizing imports of yew from mainland China and Southeast Asia, and from then on reports of illegal logging in Taiwan reduced somewhat.

In fact, the yew's sudden popularity was brought about by the coincidence of various factors such as the economic boom, rocketing share prices and the ban on logging natural forests. From the standpoint of the durability of furniture and works of art, the test of time shows that the yew really doesn't measure up to high grade woods such as the stout camphor (Cinnamomum micranthum), the Taiwan red cypress and the Taiwan cypress, because its white sapwood is sweet and attracts termites and mold, while its red heartwood darkens over time and loses its sheen so that a sculpture's sense of depth is lost. Also, because the yew's wood is so hard, the labor cost of carving it is twice that of other woods, and although its grain is very fine, it is not as fine as the Taiwan red cypress, nor as attractive as the keaki. After imports of yew wood from abroad began, people's sense of novelty disappeared. All the yew's "defects" were suddenly noticed again, and its price took a nosedive. A Guanyin statue that in the past might have cost NT$10 million would now only fetch a few hundred thousand.

(Part III: The Planting Era)

But just as the forestry staff were catching their breaths, the Taiwan yew again rose to prominence as unstoppably as before, and its value leaped upwards once more. When it was shown that just like the Pacific yew, which belongs to the same genus, the Taiwan yew also contains cancer-inhibiting compounds, the forestry workers again mobilized as if facing a great enemy-but this time they got busy planting trees.

A few patches of damp earth

Since taxol was extracted and used against cancer, the growing habits of all Taxus species have become a focus of attention. Because taxol's chemical formula is complex, to date researchers have only been able to synthesize half the molecule, and currently to extract the amount of the drug needed for a course of treatment for one patient requires processing the bark from four to six trees.

Although the genus Taxus includes eleven species which are spread widely across the northern hemisphere in many countries of North America, Europe and Asia, unfortunately the yews do not count among those "dominant" conifer species which occur in large areas of single-species forest or which are densely distributed. Yews first appeared in the Triassic period, not long after the extinction of the dinosaurs, and many plants which emerged at the same time have long since disappeared. Looking at Taxus species' distribution on a global scale, they have a typical relict distribution, like scattered patches of damp on ground drying after rain. For instance, in the USA the Pacific yew is only found in a few areas such as the western state of Oregon.

In the temperate regions of Europe, North America and Japan, although yews have been planted in gardens as ornamentals and as hedges, these ancient species grow very slowly, and are difficult to raise artificially in large numbers. Yews have never been important commercial species, and so in other countries too there are very few artificial plantations.

In the USA, back when the effects of taxol were still being tested, there were already fears that the supply of Pacific yews would not meet the demand, and indeed statistics show that the demand for Pacific yew bark has risen sharply from 27,000 kg per year to 340,000 kg in 1995.

In southern mainland China, where yews are fairly abundant and were logged for export, the felled yew trees which littered the ground in logging regions have been described as "rivers of blood." According to a report by yew researcher Professor Wu Banghua of the Jilin Forestry College, today the mainland has classed five yew species as "national treasures" which are no longer exported.

Wu Banghua expresses the view that although many researchers are applying themselves to analyzing the chemical structure or researching the physiological effects of substances from Taxus species, few are researching their botanical characteristics. However, "inappropriate exploitation of this valuable natural resource has already reduced the worldwide population reserves of Taxus species to very small numbers."

The strength of the spirits

The situation in Taiwan is even more acute. Taiwan has only one native Taxus species, the Taiwan yew (Taxus mairei), and due to the effects of climate and other features of the natural environment, it is only found in areas of mixed broad-leaved and coniferous forest in the Central Mountain Range, at elevations between 2300 and 2700 meters. The report Propagation of Taiwan Yew by Stem Cuttings, published with funding from the National Science Council, also points out that the Taiwan yew is one of Taiwan's more rare and valuable tree species, and the large-scale felling of it following the introduction of a plantation-based forest management policy in 1965 made it even rarer, so that it "now survives only in a few scattered locations of difficult access."

Today, to meet future demand for taxol and to protect the Taiwan yew population from further decline, apart from UCL which has already devoted funds and personnel to research into producing taxol from tissue cultures, forestry organizations such as the TFRI and the TFB are also stepping up their efforts to propagate the Taiwan yew artificially.

Every November, when autumn reaches the medium elevations of Taiwan's mountains and turns the leaves from green to yellow, the fleshy arils which encase the seeds of the Taiwan yew also begin to change from green to red. But just to find a yew tree in our mountain forests requires a goodly portion of luck.

In the plant communities of Taiwan's mixed forests, the leading role belongs to conifers such as the Taiwan red cypress or Taiwan hemlock (Tsuga chinensis var. for-mosana) and to broad-leaved trees of families such as the Theaceae (tea family), Laur-aceae (laurel family) and Fagaceae (beech family). The places where yews choose to grow are usually on steep slopes close to mountain ridges, in poor soil with exposed rocks.

All trees bear more fruit in some years than in others, but for Dr. Chien Ching-te and Dr. Ho Cheng-kun of TFRI's silviculture division, who go up the mountains at this time of year to gather seeds, the Taiwan yew is about the most reluctant producer of seeds that they have come across. For instance, Chien Ching-te says that in 1989, one female yew in the TFB's Juiyenhsi nature reserve in the Hohuan Mountain area, bore numerous seeds, but in the seven years since that time there have been no reports of the tree fruiting again.

The forest floor in virgin mixed forests is carpeted with a thick layer of fallen leaves, but for yew seeds to germinate they must first have the luck to fall onto a batch of bare soil without accumulated fallen leaves, where they must first lie dormant for two years. Chen Hsin-you, who holds a master's degree from the botany department at National Chung Hsing University, reports that the freshly sprouted yew seedlings which he has discovered in the mountains have usually been buried under a layer of leaf mold and humus some 10 cm thick. "After the seeds fall they have to be quickly covered up by large quantities of leaves, and the seedlings must not be exposed to too much sunshine. But because they grow on the ridges, the number of seeds which can make it through the summer and germinate is absolutely tiny," says Chen Hsin-you. Furthermore, yew fruits are a favorite food of birds, but the number of seeds which survive unscathed after being eaten is not very great either. The area and density of distribution achieved by the yews, which rely on animals to spread their seeds, is far less than that of cone-bearing trees such as the Taiwan fir (Abies kawakamii) whose seeds are distributed by the wind.

A slender hold on life

"The germination of Taiwan yew seeds is among the most difficult to manipulate of any Taiwanese woody plant species," says a dissertation from the TFRI. This recalcitrance, combined with the fact that almost no effort was devoted to studying the yew's natural history in the past, adds to the difficulties today of regenerating the yew.

Although from the 1980s onward, silvi-culturists tried eagerly to raise seedlings and sowed many seeds, the germination rate was always less than 5%, and the number of cuttings which rooted was never more than one in five.

It was only after the TFRI began a Taiwan yew regeneration program in 1992 that at last there was a breakthrough in seed germination rates. In nature the yew seeds ripen in November, and to survive the cold of winter they lie dormant on the forest floor-in the same way that animals hibernate-until they sprout in the spring of the third year. The whole process takes five to six hundred days and nights, through the passing of many seasons. How can the same environment be recreated in the laboratory, to "persuade" the seeds to germinate: to fool them into thinking that they have slept their fill in the bosom of the creator so that they are willing to shake a leg and poke their heads out above the soil to take a look around?

Silviculturist Dr. Chien Ching-te explains that when a yew seed falls to the ground it is not yet actually ripe, for the embryo is not yet fully developed, and the plant hormones and enzymes within it are still undergoing subtle changes. During the period of dormancy, just like a fetus in the womb, the plant embryo develops the characteristics which will enable it to emerge strong and healthy. In the past, most seeds collected were simply stratified (soaked, then subjected to low temperatures, to assist germination) or dried, without trying to get a handle on their particular "pace of life."

Today in a tiny laboratory at the TFRI, researchers are slowly trying to unlock the secrets of how these little parcels of life germinate and grow. Seed boxes recreate the natural environment with artificial day and night and corresponding temperature changes, after which "winter" arrives, and the seeds are stored at low temperatures. The process cannot be hurried, and it demands far more patience of the silviculturists than propagating the Taiwan red cypress or Taiwan cypress, whose seeds' dormancy can be broken in a week or two given adequate water and light.

Today, as well as planting out seedlings in nurseries in the mountains, staff at the TFB's Tungshih Forest Management Office are also propagating stem cuttings taken from mature trees. From northern to southern Taiwan, in the TFB's Tungshih, Nantou, Chiayi and other forest areas, new nurseries have appeared at many locations. Tsai Pi-li of the conservation section at Nantou Forest Management Office says that the final objective is to attempt to return the plants to the wild, to enlarge the wild population by planting out the seedlings in the most natural possible way and not subjecting them to too much human intervention.

Because only wild tree species can survive and preserve their special genetic characteristics over thousands or tens of thousands of years, "nature has screened them for us and preserved their best genetic material. In the future we will need the wild populations even more, as a source from which to select seeds to avoid the genetic degeneration which may occur in artificially cultivated populations," says Chen Hsin-you.

The red so red, the white so white

A special feature of Taiwan's natural environment is the great extremes of temperature and elevation found within its small area. This forces living organisms to devise countless ways to adapt to extremes of heat, cold and humidity, and because of this the island's trees often produce better quality, denser timber than the same species growing elsewhere, or contain higher concentrations of various substances. For instance, the wood of stout camphor trees grown in Taiwan retains its special fragrance for very long time, but when one strips away the sapwood of stout camphor imported from northern Vietnam, the fragrance disappears with it.

It has been conjectured that this is the reason why the level of taxol in the foliage of Taiwan's yews is so high. The taxonomy of the Taiwan yew is still a matter of some dispute-plant taxonomist Hu Hsiu-ying has classed it as a species (Taxus mairei) in its own right, whereas others regard it as belonging to the same species (Taxus suma-trana) as yews found in southern mainland China and Southeast Asia. However, people who make practical use of the Taiwan yew's timber are in no doubt as to the difference between Taiwan yew and other yews. One of the reasons why the TFB to this day finds itself unable to relax its protection of the yew trees in Taiwan's mountain areas is that "knowledgeable craftsmen still prefer Taiwan yew." Many timber merchants confirm that the heartwood of Taiwan yew has a redder and more beautiful sheen than that of yew from mainland China, and that in yew imported from the USA the red and white colors are intermingled, unlike the Taiwan yew in which "the red really is red, and the white really is white." The yews of Europe and America are mainly shrubs, but the Taiwan yew can grow into a massive tree with a trunk diameter of three meters.

From today's perspective it would seem that the yew has chosen itself some extremely harsh rules of survival. But to live through the ice ages and tectonic movements in the earth's crust, it has had to rely on its own "philosophy of survival." In the winter of 1991, when Chen Hsin-you was doing his military service, there was a spate of heavy snowstorms of an intensity not seen for many years. That year the snow stayed on the ground much longer than usual, but in spring when Chen went up the mountains to look for his "old friends" the yews, he discovered that many more new seedlings had emerged than he had expected, and before long numerous shoots sprang up.

In the virgin forest, although yews are few in number, they all stand firmly on their broad root systems. Even twenty meters away from the main trunk there will still be roots 10 or 20 cm thick clinging firmly onto the rock face. Where the environment is toughest and the ground poorest, making it hard for other species to gain a foothold, the yew finds its best chances of survival.

Ancient tree species may appear weak in evolutionary terms, but left to their own devices they are not likely to disappear overnight. The real crisis comes from the influence of human factors. On the open, shade-less ground left by logging, the yew seedlings are unable to put down roots or send up shoots, so in the end they are completely squeezed out by broad-leaved species.

The tree of hope

Driving higher and higher along Taiwan's Central Cross-Island Highway, after passing Chingching Farm we arrive at the TFB's Juiyenhsi nature reserve. Here biologists have discovered salamanders, a new species of bat, the endangered Mikado pheasant, and over 80 bird species. It also has areas of single-species Taiwan red cypress forest. But the earliest discovery which prompted suggestions that the area should be protected was a family of more than 30 yew trees in one hectare of woodland, which is probably the highest concentration of Taiwan yew anywhere.

This area of some of the best preserved medium-elevation virgin forest in Taiwan is shrouded in mists and clouds year-round. Standing on one spot, one might easily have six or seven hundred species of plants within one's field of vision. As another bank of fog rolls in, the trees become silhouettes; in the damp, misty air, among fallen trunks and bare rocks, broken branches and creepers hang from the trunks of gigantic trees which lean at crazy angles. The understory is dominated by shrubs and small trees such as Fatsia polycarpa and Schefflera octophylla, and large ferns. Nestling between them are tiny white-flowered orchids of the species Cheilotheca humilis, and the bright red flower spikes of the parasitic Balanophora spicata, while the roots and fallen trees are so thick with moss that one can scarcely recognize them. Up above, the forest canopy echoes with the voices of birds.

Looking down, one is surprised to see a wooden marker a foot long, behind which stands a little yew sapling just 3 to 4 cm thick. It is hard to imagine that this little tree is already in its third summer. The people who planted it placed the marker next to the sapling to help them observe its growth.

A "tree of hope" is how the US magazine Life described the Pacific yew with its anti-cancer properties. This patch of virgin forest in the mountains of Nantou County also cradles the hopes of many people.

p.79

Because the yew contains cancer-inhibiting compounds, but grows extremely slowly, it has become a focus of attention in both medical and botanical circles.

p.80

With its red heartwood and white sapwood, for a time the Taiwan yew became a highly fashionable sculpting material. In Taiwan's mountains there are many yew stumps left by illegal loggers. This traffic only declined after imports of yew wood from Southeast Asia were permitted. (facing page) A lion carved from Southeast Asian yew.

p.82

The Taiwan yew gets its Chinese name (hongdoushan or "red-bean fir") from the color of its ripe fruit. (facing page) The Formosan cowtail pine looks almost identical to the Taiwan yew, and so has suffered badly at the hands of illegal loggers. The yew's fruits are also green before they ripen. (courtesy of Nantou Forest Management Office, Taiwan Forestry Bureau)

p.84

The yew is a slow-growing primitive conifer. Though all the young trees pictured here were planted five years ago, the spindly specimens in the foreground are yew, while the lush foliage in the background belongs to broad-leaved stout camphor trees.

p.85

Yew trees do not fruit readily, and climbing the trees to collect the seeds is hard work. In our picture, Hsieh Sung-yuan of Nantou forestry station clambers 10 meters high into a yew tree to check how many seeds it will bear this year.

p.86

Before yew seeds germinate in the wild, they must lie dormant through many changes of the seasons. TFRI researchers place seeds in a special liquid culture medium to promote early germination for artificial planting.

p.87

Dr. Ho Cheng-kun (front) and Dr. Chien Ching-te (rear) of the TFRI's silviculture division collect seeds and stem cuttings from wild yews for germination and propagation in the institute's greenhouses beside the Taipei botanical gardens.

p.88

(right) In the Juiyenhsi nature reserve, TFB workers have placed a marker next to this three-year-old yew sapling to protect it from careless feet.

The Taiwan yew gets its Chinese name （hongdoushan or "red-bean fir"） fro m the color of its ripe fruit. （facing page） The Formosan cowtail pine looks almost identical to the Taiwan yew, and so has suffered badly at the hands of illegal loggers. The yew's fruits are also green before they ripen. （courtesy of Nantou Forest Management Office, Taiwan Forestry Bureau）

The yew is a slow-growing primitive conifer. Though all the young trees pictured here were planted five years ago, the spindly specimens in the foreground are yew, while the lush foliage in the background belongs to broad-leaved stout camphor trees.

Yew trees do not fruit readily, and climbing the trees to collect the seeds is hard work. In our picture, Hsieh Sung-yuan of Nantou forestry station clambers 10 meters high into a yew tree to check how many seeds it will bear this year.

Before yew seeds germinate in the wild, they must lie dormant through many changes of the seasons. TFRI researchers place seeds in a special liquid culture medium to promote early germination for artificial planting.

Dr. Ho Cheng-kun （front） and Dr. Chien Ching-te （rear） of the TFRI's sil viculture division collect seeds and stem cuttings from wild yews for germination and propagation in the institute's greenhouses beside the Taipei botanical gardens.

（right） In the Juiyenhsi nature reserve, TFB workers have placed a marker next to this three-year-old yew sapling to protect it from careless feet.