Taxus Cuspidate, Heartwood And Fruits Of Japanese Torreya Tree Chemical Composition Of The Study

Taxus cuspidata (Taxaceae) is a dioecious and evergreen plant, distributing in the northeast China, Japan and Korea, which can be classified into two subspecies: T. cuspidata Sieb. et Zucc. and T. cuspidata Sieb. et Zucc. var. nana Rehder. T. cuspidata is recorded in"Ben Cao Gang Mu"as medicinal material treating cholera, typhoid and promoting the excreting of toxin. There are more records about T. cuspidata in several books, such as"the Dictionary of Traditional Chinese Medicine","the Annal of Plants in the Northest"and so on. It is reported that the twigs and needles of T. cuspidata were used as crude herbal medicine to treat diabetes, to cure nephritic disease, to promote diuresis, and as an emmenagogue in the glossary of the Chinese Traditional Medicine. Besides the previous uses, the fruit, twigs and needles are widely used in folk medicine for the treatment of parasites and indigestion.Taxol(?), the efficiency component originally isolated from the bark of the Pacific yew, Taxus brevofolia, is the most active and successful anticancer drug isolated from the nature in the past three decades. Taxol? has been used to treat many kinds of...