Torreya ^4-^5 



TORREYA CALIFORNICA 



Torreya calif ornica, Torrey, in New York Journ. Pharm. iii. 49 (1854); J. D. Hooker, in Gard. 



Chron. xxiv. 553 (1885); Masters, in Gard. Chron. v. 800, figs. 126, 127 (1889); Kent, 



Veitch's Man. Conif. 117 (1900) ; Pilger, in Engler, Pflanzenreich, iv. 5, Taxacea, 109 (1903) ; 



Jepson, Silva of California, 167 (19 10). 

 Torreya Myristica, J. D. Hooker, in Bot. Mag. t. 4780 (1854); Murray, in Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. 



vi. 217, pi. iii. (i860); Masters, in Gard. Chron. xxii. 681, fig. 116 (1884). 

 Caryotaxus Myristica, Henkel and Hochstetter, Syn. Nadelh. 368 (1865). 

 Tumion californicum, Greene, in Pittonia, ii. 195 (1891); Sargent, Silva N. Amer. x. 59, t. 513 



(1896), and Trees N. Amer. 98 (1905). 



A tree, attaining in California 100 ft. in height, and 12 ft. in girth, usually 

 considerably smaller. Leaves, branches, and wood pungent-aromatic. Young 

 branchlets glabrous, green, becoming brown in the second year. Buds, up to \ in. long, 

 prismatic, with eight to ten decussate outer scales, those towards the apex elongated. 

 Leaves, i|- to 3 in. long, \ in. wide ; linear, tapering in the anterior third to an 

 acuminate spine-tipped apex ; dark shining green above ; lower surface flat, glaucous, 

 with two slightly depressed white stomatic bands (about 0.3 mm. wide), much 

 narrower than the broad midrib (about i mm. wide), and the two outer glaucous 

 bands (each about o. 7 mm. wide) ; petiole stout, ^ in. long. 



Staminate flowers \ in. long ; connective truncate, not dentate. Fruit ^ ellipsoid 

 or obovoid, i to i^ in. long ; light green streaked with purple ; flesh thin, resinous ; 

 shell fawn-coloured, smooth or with irregular slight longitudinal ridges ; inner coat 

 reddish, deeply folded into the white albumen. 



Seedling ^ similar to that of Ginkgo biloba, with two thick and fleshy cotyledons, 

 remaining underground ; the stem bearing below a few scales, which are succeeded 

 by ordinary leaves, the transition between the scales and the leaves being gradual. 



(A. H.) 



This species is a native of California, growing on the borders of mountain 

 streams, nowhere common, but widely distributed from Mendocino County to the 

 Santa Cruz mountains in the coast region, and along the western slopes of the Sierra 

 Nevada from Eldorado to Tulare County, at 3000 to 5000 ft. elevation. It is most 

 abundant and of its largest size in the northern coast ranges. Hough, in American 

 Woods, pt. vi. p. 50, describes a fine tree overthrown by a flood near the coast in 

 Mendocino County, from which the specimens of wood in his book were cut. It 

 was 85 ft. long to the point, 5 in. in diameter, where its dead top was broken off. 

 Its straight columnar trunk was 12 ft. in girth at eighteen inches, and 8 ft. at thirty- 

 five feet from the ground. Assuming that the growth of this tree had been as 

 uniform as in the section, which shows ten rings to the inch, it would have been 

 from 250 to 300 years old, and the contents of the log about 300 cubic feet, 



1 Described from specimens grown at Orton. Cf. F. W. Oliver, in Ann. Bot. xvii. 466, pi. xxiv. (1903), for a detailed 

 description of the remarkable structure of the seed of this species. 



* Miss Chick (Mrs. Tansley) describes seedlings grown from seed produced at Orton, in New Phytologist, ii. 83, plates 



vii. viii. (igoS)- 



