A PILGRIMAGE TO TOREETA. 1 



Ordered to go south until I should meet the tardy spring 

 and summer, I was expected to follow the beaten track to 

 east Florida. But I wished rather to avoid the crowd of in- 

 valids and pleasure travelers, and turned my attention in 

 preference to western Florida, determined that, if possible, I 

 would make a pious pilgrimage to the secluded native haunts 

 of that rarest of trees, the Torreya taxifolia. 



All that I knew, or could at the moment learn, was, that 

 this peculiar evergreen Yew-like tree— prized by arboricul- 

 turists for its elegance, and dear to us botanists for the name 

 it bears and commemorates — grew on the banks of the Apa- 

 lachicola River, somewhere near the confluence of the Flint 

 and Chattahoochee, which by their union form it. It was there 

 discovered, nearly forty years ago, by Mr. Hardy B. (room, 

 and had since been seen, at two or three stations, by his sur- 

 viving associate Dr. Chapman, of Apalachicola, author of the 

 Southern Flora. Mr. Croom, upon ascertaining that lie was 

 the fortunate discoverer of an entirely new type of coniferous 

 trees, desired that it should bear Dr. Torrey's name ; and the 

 genus Torreya was accordingly so named and characterized 

 by the Scotch botanist Arnott. It is of the Yew family, in 

 foliage and in male flowers much resembling the Yew itself, 

 but more graceful than the European Yew-tree, wholly des- 

 titute of the berry-like cup which characterizes the latter 

 genus, and with the naked seed itself fleshly-coated, and larger 

 than an olive, which it resembles in shape and appearance. 

 One young tree, brought or sent by Mr. Croom himself, has 

 been kept alive at New York - showing its aptitude for a 

 colder climate than that of which it is a native — and has been 

 more or less multiplied by cuttings. 2 Sprigs from this tree 



1 " American Agriculturist," 1875, 262. 



* "The American Agriculturist » for May states that the tree spoken 



