Taxus(yew)is both a most species-rich and taxonomically difficult genus in Taxaceae.To date,no study has elucidated the complexities of the plastid genome(plastome)or examined the possibility of whole plastomes as super-barcodes across yew species worldwide.In this study,we sequenced plastomes from two to three individuals for each of the 16 recognized yew species(including three potential cryptics)and Pseudotaxus chienii.Our comparative analyses uncovered several gene loss events that independently occurred in yews,resulting in a lower plastid gene number than other Taxaceous genera.