The yew tree has special meaning for Garrett Staples.

Along with early detection, the yew saved his mom Lynda’s life when she was diagnosed with breast cancer last year.

“It was such an aggressive cancer, if she had waited even a year, it would have been terminal.”

Yew trees are the source of one of the most potent breast cancer treatment drugs, paclitaxel, commonly known as Taxol.

Though most Taxol today is manufactured synthetically, it all goes back to a botanist pulling bark off of a yew in the Pacific Northwest woods in 1962 and taking it back to the lab.

Saturday about 20 yew trees will go in the ground at Murrayhill Park in Beaverton as we partner with Garrett’s company, PRiNK Technologies, to commemorate Breast Cancer Awareness Month. All together Friends of Trees will plant about 300 yew trees this season, including around 90 this month in Beaverton and Forest Park. (View event calendar for more info and to come volunteer!)

PRiNK makes custom wood and bamboo smart phone cases locally in Portland (instead of in China). Since 2012, PRiNK has planted a tree with Friends of Trees for each case they sell. Yew trees are a natural choice for October.

“This was my mom’s idea,” Garrett says of planting yews. The slow-growing conifers are native to our own backyard forests and serve as a powerful symbol of breast cancer awareness.

After a rough couple of years, Garrett and his family are feeling thankful. Just days after his mom’s health was cleared, his father was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. After surgery two weeks ago, Garrett’s dad is now cancer-free as well.

This month we join Garrett in saluting the yew tree and all of the survivors who have braved its potent effects in their fight.

Nearly a quarter million women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. For more information about self-screening and early breast cancer detection, you can visit the National Breast Cancer Foundation.