Cephalotaxus

Cephalotaxus, commonly called plum-yew or cowtail-pine, is a genus of conifers comprising 11 species, either considered the only member of the family Cephalotaxaceae, or in the Taxaceae when that family is considered in a broad sense. The genus is endemic to eastern Asia, though fossil evidence shows it had a wider Northern Hemisphere distribution in the past. The species are shrubs and small trees reaching 1.0–10 metres (3–33 ft) tall.

Cephalotaxus

Uncredited · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
TaxeaePBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Streptophyta

Time the record covers

At least 69 million years on record.

The record covers at least 72.2 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 83.6 Mya to 774 ka.

Late Cretaceous — about 1 of 30 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 0 of 30 occurrencesEocene — about 3 of 30 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 8 of 30 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 15 of 30 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 2 of 30 occurrencesPleistocene — about 1 of 30 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences82–80 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences80–77 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences77–74 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences74–71 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences57–54 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences54–51 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences48–45 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences45–43 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences43–40 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences40–37 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences34–31 Mya — about 1 occurrence31–28 Mya — about 1 occurrence28–26 Mya — about 3 occurrences26–23 Mya — about 3 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 2 occurrences14–11 Mya — about 12 occurrences11–8.5 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences8.5–5.7 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.7–2.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences2.8–0 Mya — about 1 occurrence72.2 Mya2.58 Mya85 Mya0 Mya

30 occurrences of Cephalotaxus on record, most of them in the Miocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group, and the chart stops with its fossils rather than at the present. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

30 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

4 formations

Eifel — 50.10°N, 6.84°ELondon Clay — 51.40°N, 0.83°EOla — 60.17°N, 150.49°ENingming — 22.14°N, 107.03°E

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The named rock units Cephalotaxus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 26 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Cephalotaxus and its relatives

Miocene

Where Cephalotaxus and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

291 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Cephalotaxus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

15 references

Each of the 30 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 3 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Cephalotaxus

Credit
nobody named on the record
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itTaxeae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Siebold and Zuccarini 1842