584 SEQUOIA AND ITS HISTORY. 
this association, Dr. Torrey, was founded upon a tree rather lately 
discovered (that is, about thirty-five years ago) in northern Flor- 
ida. It is a noble, yew-like tree, and very local, being known 
only for a few miles along the shores of a single river. It seems 
as if it had somehow been crowded down out of the Alleghanies 
into its present limited southern quarters; for in cultivation it 
evinces a northern hardiness. Now another species of Torreya is 
a characteristic tree of Japan; and the same, or one very like it 
indeed, inhabits the Himalayas, — belongs, therefore, to the East- 
ern Asiatic temperate region, of which China is a part, and Japan, 
as we shall see, the portion most interesting to us. There is only 
one more species of Torreya, and that is a companion of the red- 
woods in California. It is the tree locally known under the name 
of the California nutmeg. In this.case the three are near brethren, 
species of the same genus, known nowhere else than in these three 
abitats. ; 
Moreover, the Torreya of Florida has growing with it a yew 
tree ; and the trees of that grove are the only yew trees of Eastern 
America ; for the yew of our northern woods is a decumbent shrub. 
The only other yew trees in America grow with the redwoods and 
the other Torreya in California, and more plentifully farther north, 
in Oregon. A yew tree equally accompanies the Torreya of Japan , 
and the Himalayas, and this is apparently the same as the common : 
yew of Europe. 
So we have three groups of trees of the great 
which agree in this peculiar geographical distrib st 
woods and their relatives, which differ widely enough to be te H 
a different genus in each region ; the Torreyas, more nearly à ; ‘ : 
merely a different species in each region; the yews, pe we as 
the same species, perhaps not quite that, for opinions differ # a . 
hardly be brought to any decisive test. The yews "a 
World, from Japan to Western Europe, are considered wee - 
the very local one in Florida is slightly different; pai w 
nia and Oregon differs a very little more; but all 0 ie 
within the limits of variation of many a species. Howeve’ "o 
may be, it appears to me that these several instances „nd, if 10 : 
same question, only with a different degree of onp w 
be explained at all, will have the same kind of ae pa a 
the value of the explanation will be in proportion aid ys 
of facts it will explain. : ith which 2 
Continuing the comparison between the three regions WH" = 
ire 
2 
4 
‘ 
$ 
E 
y 
4 
x 
4 
coniferous order 
ution; the ree 
