The Eiben (Taxus) form a plant kind in the family of the (Taxaceae). They belong to the resinous wood plants (Pinophyta), it are Nacktsamer.

Description

The kind of the Eiben registers 8 to 10 kinds, whose circulation area is distributed over the northern earth hemisphere. In Europe only a kind is domestic, the European Eibe.

Eiben are very slowly growing, evergreen bushes or small to medium sized trees, which occur in free nature in the forest isolated increasing. Eiben can become old over 1,000 years.

Eiben are getrenntgeschlechtig Male and female blooms grow on separate plants. Female plants carry red "“fruits"” in the autumn, which contain an individual seed in the center. Fleshy fabrics, develops the seed surrounding red, from the seed bowl (Testa). One speaks in this case not of a fruit (in the botanischen sense) separates of a seed coat (Arillus), since there can be fruits by definition only with bedecktsamigen plants.

Use

Wood

Eibenholz applied in the Middle Ages as the best wood to elbows because of its hardness and elasticity. This led to excessive use and destruction of Eiben by pulling through armies. The wood was already used by predecessors of the Homo Sapiens for the production of hunting weapons.

Also with the building of sounds the high elastic Eibenholz for the curved Korpus of the sounds was preferentially used.

Health danger

see in addition the article: List of poisonous plants

All plant parts (with exception of the red seed coat) contain poisonous alkaloids (Taxane) for humans and many animals. The dose deadly for humans is approximately with 1 gram of Eibennadeln per kilogram body weight. Game animals like the deer gladly at the Eibe, despite also the Giftigkeit existing for them.

The Eibengifte is used chemically modified as cytostatic drugs (cancer medicines) in the medicine. From Taxus baccata, Taxus brevifolia and related kinds was isolated Paclitaxel, which is the most well-known contents material. The effectiveness of the means was recognized, after one in the USA into the 1970er years 35,000 plants in view to possible, for which cancer therapy had examined relevant characteristics. Taxol, whose chemical formula was determined for the first time 1971, was thereby one of the most promising active substances Jean Marie Pelt: The secrets of the welfare plants, publishing house Knesebeck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89660-291-8, P. 88. The active substance, which one could not manufacture first synthetically, was won from the crusts by Eiben. Pierre Potier could prove that the active substance successful in the cancer therapy occurred also in the needles.

The Eiben were fought in the times of the forest pasture against the population, particularly against driving people, since it came again and again by the Eiben to cattle poisonings. Thus for instance the chronicles Paris cemetery of the Lachaise that in former times the corpse car horses of the Giftigkeit of the cemetery Eiben growing there fell to the victim, tell there it during the funerals always to the branches of these plants nibbled Jean Marie Pelt: The secrets of the welfare plants, publishing house Knesebeck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-89660-291-8, P. 91.

Systematics

Here some Taxus kinds (selection):

• European Eibe (T. baccata), also common Eibe mentioned
• Pacific Eibe (T. brevifolia)
• Canadian Eibe (T. canadensis)
• Chinese Eibe (T. chinensis)
• Japanese Eibe (T. cuspidata)
• Florida Eibe (T. floridana)
• Mexican Eibe (T. globosa)
• Sumatra Eibe (T. sumatrana) (syn.: T. celebica)
• Himalaja Eibe (T. wallichiana)

Apart from the specified kinds there are numerous crossings. The most well-known is T. media, 1900 a crossing from T, developed in Massachusetts. baccata and T. cuspidata. Of them broadly growing breed form "“Hicksii"” is relatively frequently planted.

Footnotes

Literature

Books

• Thomas Scheeder: The Eibe (Taxus baccata L.). Hope for a forest people nearly disappeared. IHW publishing house, Eching 1994, ISBN 3-930167-06-9
• Christoph Leuthold: The ecological and plant-sociological position of the Eibe (Taxus baccata) in Switzerland. Publications of the Geobotani institute of the ETH, donation Zurich, No. 67. Geobotani Institut of the ETH, donation Zurich 1980
• Markus Olaf Schmidt (talk.) et al.: Contributions to the Eibe. Reports from the Bavarian national institute for forest and forestry, No. 10. Bavarian national institute for forest and forestry, freesing 1996
• Hugo Conwentz: The Eibe in west Prussia, a becoming extinct Waldbaum. Bertling, Danzig 1892
• Angelika Haschler Magic of the Eibenwaldes. New earth, Saarbruecken 2005, ISBN 3-89060-084-0

Magazine

• The Eibenfreund

Related links

• The poison plant common Eibe
• The poison plant Pacific Eibe
• Protective association German forest - tree folding sheet the Eibe
• in Bamberg description of the tree species
• Eibe as food for birds and parrots
• Promotion of rare tree species - the Eibe (pdf)
• "“Rare trees in our forests - recognizing, receiving, use"” - the Eibe (pdf)
• Eibenwald (pdf)

Articles in category "Eiben"

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