Japanese Nutmeg Tree

Trees to 25 m tall; trunk to 90 cm d.b.h.; bark grayish brown or light brownish red, smooth when young, fissured and peeling off in thin strips. Axis of leafy branchlets green and glabrous in 1st year, green or reddish brown and lustrous in 2nd or 3rd year. Leaves 2-ranked, linear, straight or slightly curved, 2-3 cm × 2.2-3 mm, rigid, pale green adaxially, stomatal bands 2, pale yellow, narrow, impressed, base slightly rounded or cuneate, abruptly narrowed into a short petiole, apex very long acuminate, spinose. Seed dark green when young, purplish brown at maturity, ellipsoid-obovoid or obovoid, 2.5-3.2 × 1.3-1.7 cm. Pollination Apr-May, seed maturity Oct.

Cultivated as a slow-growing, ornamental tree. Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shanghai, Zhejiang [native to Japan]

Taxus nucifera Linnaeus, Sp. Pl. 2: 1040. 1753.