Taxus cuspidataSiebold & Zucc.

Japanese YewJapanese yew

WFO wfo-0000408609 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. a Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-23 / obs. 184292526
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. b Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157726996
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Reuven Martin
fig. c Reuven Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 60404575
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Kim, Hyun-tae
fig. d Kim, Hyun-tae, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56840137
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Kim, Hyun-tae
fig. e Kim, Hyun-tae, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56292520
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. f Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 52201420
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Reuven Martin
fig. g Reuven Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 42835875
Taxus cuspidata, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. h Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32962867

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 7 botanical countries

Regions where Taxus cuspidata is native: China North-Central, Japan, Korea, Kuril Is., Manchuria, Primorye, Sakhalin China North-CentralJapanManchuriaPrimoryeSakhalin Korea
Native distribution of Taxus cuspidata, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Kuril Is. KUR
Manchuria CHM
Primorye PRM
Sakhalin SAK

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 572 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -21.8 °C -9.1 °C -1.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.7 °C 25.4 °C 29.1 °C
Annual rainfall 746 mm 1,175 mm 2,560 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 53 mm 184 mm 305 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 572 research-grade observations of Taxus cuspidata that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 30 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Cephalotaxus umbraculifera Siebold ex Endl.
  • Taxus baccata subsp. cuspidata (Siebold & Zucc.) Pilg.
  • Taxus baccata var. cuspidata (Siebold & Zucc.) Carrière
  • Taxus baccata var. latifolia Pilg.
  • Taxus baccata var. microcarpa Trautv.
  • Taxus biternata Spjut
  • Taxus caespitosa Nakai
  • Taxus caespitosa var. angustifolia Spjut
  • Taxus caespitosa var. latifolia (Pilg.) Spjut
  • Taxus cuspidata f. aurescens Rehder
  • Taxus cuspidata f. densa Rehder ex E.H.Wilson
  • Taxus cuspidata f. fructu-luteo Froebel ex Beissn.
  • Taxus cuspidata f. luteobaccata (Miyabe & Tatew.) Rehder
  • Taxus cuspidata f. minima Slavin
  • Taxus cuspidata f. nana (Rehder) E.H.Wilson
  • Taxus cuspidata f. thayerae Rehder
  • Taxus cuspidata subsp. biternata (Spjut) Silba
  • Taxus cuspidata subsp. nana (Rehder) Silba
  • Taxus cuspidata subsp. umbraculifera (Siebold ex Endl.) Silba
  • Taxus cuspidata var. caespitosa (Nakai) Q.L.Wang
  • Taxus cuspidata var. compacta Bean
  • Taxus cuspidata var. densa (Rehder ex E.H.Wilson) Rehder
  • Taxus cuspidata var. latifolia (Pilg.) Nakai
  • Taxus cuspidata var. luteobaccata Miyabe & Tatew.

and 6 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.