Species: Taxus cuspidata
Family
Taxaceae
Genus
Taxus
Common Name
Zi Shan
Description
Taxus cuspidata, an evergreen woody plant from the Taxaceae family that is native to Northeast China, Korea, Japan and the extreme southeast of Russia, has been deemed an endangered Tertiary relict species. However, T. cuspidata is well known worldwide for its ability to produce the antitumor metabolite Taxol, a complex tetracyclic diterpenoid that is mainly produced by plants from the Taxus genus. Since Taxol was approved for the treatment of refractory ovarian cancer by the U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA) in 1992, it has been increasingly adopted and is currently approved for the treatment of breast, lung, nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC), Kaposi’s sarcoma, etc.