TORREYA CALIFORNICA. 117 



Staminate flowers in globose-cylindric heads, covered with ovate, closely 

 imbricated, spirally arranged scales, and subtended at the base by a 

 few scale-like bracts, larger than the antheriferous scales. Stamens in 

 six eight whorls, attached to the axis by a short, flattened filament 

 bearing four deflexed anthers. 



Ovuliferous flowers, composed of one or more fleshy scales surrounded 

 at the base by a few scale-like imbricated bracts in decussate pairs ; 

 ovule solitary, erect, seated in the centre of a fleshy aril which 

 partially closes over it, and becomes confluent with the testa of the 

 seed. 



Fruit ovoid or ellipsoid, consisting of a single seed enclosed in a 

 ligneous shell covered with a fibrous fleshy envelope (aril) and thin 

 leathery integument of a greenish brown colour when ripe. 

 The young foliage of the Torreyas when bruised emit a disagreeable 

 rue -like odour, whence in America they are called fetid Yews. The 

 genus commemorates Dr. John Torrey, " the Nestor of American 

 Botany," the originator and author of a portion of the " Flora of 

 North America," and the contributor of many valuable papers on 

 subjects connected with American Botany.* 



The Torreyas do not thrive in Great Britain. T. taxifolia is a sub- 

 tropical tree which, if introduced, would probably succumb to the first 

 severe winter it would have to endure ; T. californica has proved 

 disappointing except in the case of a very few specimens growing in 

 the south-west of England and in parts of Ireland ; and the same 

 must be said of the Japanese T. nucifera. In a few places the two 

 last-named species are growing into moderate-sized bushes, but more 

 frequently their growth is very slow, and the habit they assume offers 

 little that is attractive and is quite different from the handsome trees 

 they often become in their native countries. 



Torreya californica. 



A tree 50 70 or more feet high, with a trunk 1 2 feet 

 in diameter covered with grey-brown bark with a reddish tinge and 

 fissured longitudinally into narrow ridges. Branches spreading and 

 ramified distichously, the branchlets mostly opposite ; bark of branches 

 smooth, red-brown, much paler and striated with grey on the younger 

 shoots, and green on branchlets of the current year's growth. Buds 

 usually three at the apex of the axial growths, solitary or in pairs 

 on the lateral shoots, ovoid-conic, acute, four-angled with about eight 

 ovate, acute, light brown, closely imbricated perulse in decussate pairs. 

 Leaves persistent five six years, sub-spirally arranged and spreading 

 distichously, linear-lanceolate, spine- tipped, 1-5 2 -5 inches long, falcately 

 curved or straight, thickened along the middle, dark lustrous green above, 

 paler with two depressed whitish stomatiferous lines beneath. Staininate 

 flowers in dense globose heads about 0*35 inch in diameter, in the axils 



The name Torreya, after fifty years of continuous use for this remarkable group 

 of trees, is now discarded by the American botanists in favour of Ratinesque's Tumion, 

 on the ground that the name had been previously taken up by Sprengel for' a Verben- 

 aceous plant which lias been merged in Clerodendron by Beiitham and Hooker, "Genera 

 Plantarum," II. 1156. 



