Free Republic

From Poison Berries, to English Longbowmen and a new Elixir of Health Yew bushes are quite common in gardens as ornamental shrubs and hedges. They are liked for being hardy, and soil and moisture tolerant evergreens. In addition, the have nice red berries in the fall. Please note: the orange/red juicy fruits are quite palatable but have poisonous seeds in the center. Their poison was already known two millennia ago (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxus_baccata ) and appeared to be the choice of soldiers to die when not wanting to fall alive into the hands of the enemy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States and China want to expand trade regulations to protect Asian yew trees, a plant that provides the compound for one of the world's top-selling chemotherapy drugs but is threatened by poaching. Chinese herbalists have used trees of the taxus species, also known as yew trees, for centuries to treat common ailments. In the late 1960s, scientists in North Carolina found that extract of yew bark fought tumors, and in the early 1990s, the U.S. government approved the use of paclitaxel, also known as taxol, by drug company Bristol-Myers Squibb for chemotherapy. Taxol, whose...