Cephalotaxaceae

Cephalotaxaceae is a small family of conifers. It is often treated as a monophyletic family including only the single genus Cephalotaxus, while others have also included Torreya and Amentotaxus in the family. Cephalotaxaceae is closely allied to the yew family Taxaceae, and is often included in a wide interpretation of Taxaceae, based on phylogenetic evidence and close morphological similarities between them. Included species were restricted to east Asia, except for two species of Torreya found in the southwest and southeast of the United States; fossil evidence shows a much wider prehistorical Northern Hemisphere distribution. The most notable differences between Taxaceae and Cephalotaxaceae concerned the cone aril, which fully encloses the seeds of Cephalotaxaceae, the longer maturation of Cephalotaxaceae seeds and the larger size of the mature seeds. When considered as a distinct family, members of Cephalotaxaceae are much branched, small trees and shrubs. The leaves are evergreen,......read more on Wikipedia.