The life-giving secret of the magical yew

By Dorothy Dobbie

Aug. 28, 2008

It is strange how plants can attract such vitriol from people and yet be so vital to our health and well-being.

When you think about it, the War on Drugs is really a war on plants. Whole fields of poppies are systematically destroyed in Afghanistan. Naturally occurring marijuana is wiped out in North America. Purple loosestrife is labelled a “beautiful killer”.

Yet, even with all this hate and fear going on, plants continue to produce nearly everything we need for life, especially food that sustains us and drugs that make our existences bearable or possible.

One of these plants is as ancient as Western history: The yew tree, long a symbol of death and resurrection, has more recently released its secrets in controlling some cancers. It is the origin of the “wonder drug” taxol, which inhibits the growth of cancer cells in a controlled manner and has been used against a host of the tumours, including breast, ovarian, lung and colorectal tumours.

The ancient yews of Britain are the most famous of the species – some ancient yews are as old as 4,000 years. Legend says the yew was the tree in the Garden of Eden. The British yew is a huge tree that grows slowly and produces iron-like wood. It was the tree used for the finest bows and arrows, and its wood was considered best in the making of musical instruments.

Yew or taxus, as is its Latin name, grows throughout the Northern Hemisphere All yews have soft flat, evergreen needles of a lovely blue-green and bear small red berries, but not all are as proficient in the production of taxol as the B.C. yew.

The Pacific yew of British Columbia is a shrubby tree that grows, very slowly, to between 15 and 45 feet tall. It contains the highest quantities of taxol but even then only minute quantities are found in any tree.

After the discovery of taxol and approval of its use in the early 1990s, the systematic destruction of B.C. yew forests began. Since then there has been an ongoing search for a substitute source for taxol. Synthetics are being explored and some methods to obtain the chemical using just the branches and needles of agriculturally grown yew trees are being tested.

Now there is a new Morden variety, a small shrub that grows to about two-feet-by-two -. It likes a moist woodland habitat with good drainage and part shade. I don’t think it will cure cancers, but it’s nice to think about the life giving properties of its relatives as you admire this lovely little tree growing in your back yard.