64 TAXACEAE 



long, 1 line wide, spreading right and left in flat sprays; stamen clusters 

 globose, 1 to 1% lines long; seeds borne on the under side of the sprays and 

 when mature set in a fleshy scarlet cup, the whole looking like a brilliantly 

 colored berry, 5 or 6 lines long. 



Along deep canon streams or moist shady bottoms: Sierra Nevada from 

 Lassen Peak southward to Tulare Co. ; canons below south base of Mt. Shasta ; 

 north Coast Kanges (chiefly between 1,000 and 2,500 feet) from the Klamath 

 Range and the Siskiyou Mts. south to Three Creeks (Humboldt Co.), Sher- 

 wood, Snow Mt. and Mt. St. Helena; Santa Cruz Mts., Laguna Creek (Dr. C. 

 L. Anderson). Reported in the Santa Lucia Mts. but no definite locality on 

 record. Its general range in California is essentially that of Douglas Fir but 

 it occurs only in widely sundered localities of very small area and is not 

 abundant in any locality. Beyond our borders ranging north to southern 

 tip of Alaska and eastward to the continental divide in western Montana. 

 Wood very hard, dense, springy and durable ; used for machine bearings and 

 by the native tribes for their best bows. 



Kefs. TAXUS BREVIFOLIA Nuttall, Sylva, vol. 3, p. 86, t. 108 (1849), type loc. near mouth of 

 Columbia Eiver, Nuttall; Jepson, Fl. W. Mid. Cal. p. 17 (1901) ; Goddard, Univ. Gal. Publ. 

 Am. Arehae. vol. 1, p. 32 (1903). 



2. TORREYA Arn. 



Trees with rigid sharp-pointed leaves. Stamen clusters solitary in the 

 adjacent leaf axils, borne on 1-year-old branches, made up of 6 to 8 whorls of 

 stamens, 4 stamens in a whorl, each filament with 4 pollen-sacs without crests. 

 Ovule completely covered by a fleshy aril-like coat, the whole becoming drupe- 

 like in fruit. Seed with thick woody outer coat, its inner layer irregularly 

 folded into the white endosperm. Four species, 1 in California, 1 in Florida, 

 and 2 in China and Japan. (Named for John Torrey of Columbia College, 

 long identified with western botany and who first visited California before the 

 days of the Overland Railroad.) 



1. T. californica Torr. CALIFORNIA NUTMEG. Handsome dark green tree 

 15 to 90 feet high, the trunk % to 3 feet in diameter and clothed in smoothish 

 thin dark bark; leaves rigid, 1^4 to 2,y 2 inches long, 1% lines wide, flat, dark 

 green above, yellowish green beneath and with two longitudinal glaucous 

 grooves, linear or somewhat tapering upward, the apex armed with a stout 

 short bristle, twisted on their short petioles so as to form a 2-ranked flat 

 spray; stamen clusters whitish, globose, about 3 lines long, crowded on the 

 under side of the branches; fruit elliptical in outline, resembling a plum or 

 olive, green in color or when ripe streaked with purple, iy 8 to 1% inches long ; 

 flesh thin and resinous; shell of the seed more or less longitudinally grooved; 

 embryo minute (1 line long), placed at the upper end of the seed; endosperm 

 copious, with irregular incisions filled by the inner coat, giving it a marbled 

 appearance so that in cross-section the seed resembles the true nutmeg of 

 commerce. 



Coast Ranges : Big River and Melburne, Mendocino Co. ; Bartlett Springs : 

 Mayacamas Range from the Terraces east of Ukiah south to Mt. St. Helena; 

 Duncans Mills; Bolinas Ridge from Tocaloma to Mt. Tamalpais; Santa Cruz 

 Mts. from La Honda to Archibald Creek (W.L.J.) and southeasterly to Hume, 

 Norton and Saratoga canons between 1,000 and 2,000 feet (R. L. Pendleton). 

 Sierra Nevada: Lassens Butte, Yuba and Feather rivers, and reported from 



Jepson, Fl. Cal. pp. 33-64. Nov. 4, 1909 



