THE STINKING YEWS. 327 



This is said by Fortune, who gave it the above name, to be a 

 large tree, with a spreading head, found on the mountains in 

 the Northern part of China, and to be a species of Torreya ; but 

 upon what grounds I am unable to tell, as the fruit wants the 

 principal characteristics of that genus, it not having a marbled or 

 veined kernel, or what botanists call a ruminated albumen, like 

 the interior of the common nutmeg; it also wants that strong rue- 

 like smell so peculiar to all the species from America and Japan, 

 and which no doubt led to their being called ' the Stinking 

 Nutmegs ;' the specific name ' grandis' also seems an imaginary 

 qualification. It, however, may be a new and distinct species of 

 Cephalotaxus, which will be very desirable, particularly if it 

 should prove hardy in England. 



No. 2. Torreya myristica. Hooker, the Californian Nutmeg. 



Leaves, in two rows, long, narrow, and opposite on the 

 branchlets, but somewhat alternate and scattered round the 

 stems and principal shoots, linear-lanceolate, mostly quite 

 straight, but sometimes slightly falcate, tapering to a long acute 

 spiny point, somewhat lanceolate at the summit, and attenuated 

 into a very short twisted footstalk, decurrent at the base ; from 

 two to two inches and a half long, and one line and a half 

 broad, of a pale yellowish green, without any mid-rib, and 

 slightly convex on the upper surface, but much paler on the 

 under one, and marked longitudinally on each side of the centre 

 nerve, with a narrow sunken band, whitish when young, but 

 afterwards assuming a brown colour ; buds, covered with per- 

 sistent oval scales. Male catkins, axillary, and solitary ; female 

 flowers, in twos or threes on short peduncles, and axillary. 

 Fruit, elliptic, and from one inch and a quarter to one inch and 

 a half long, with a thin fleshy or leathery green covering, quite 

 smooth when ripe outside, and very similar to that of Torreya 

 taxifolia. Seeds, with a hard bony shell. Seed-leaves, in twos. 



A small bushy-headed tree, growing from twenty to forty 

 feet high, with spreading more or less horizontal branches ; 

 found growing on the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. 



Timber, yellowish, heavy, and fine-grained ; but all parts of 



