<i>Torreya in Columbus GA</i>

Torreya taxifolia in Columbus, Georgia

February 26, 2009 Fred C Fussell sent this email to Torreya Guardian Connie Barlow:
At the very moment that we returned home today from a weekend visit to see our kids in Oxford, MS, we spotted a stranger on our front porch -- one with Lafayette County, Mississippi, (Oxford) license plates on his car -- knocking on our front door. It turned out to be Edwrd Croom, Jr., PhD., who was here hoping to photograph our Torreya. Ed had no clue that you and I had corresponded about the tree during the past two weeks. He was actually on his way to the Atlanta Botanical Garden to see other examples of Torreya and made a side trip to Columbus.
As it happens, Ed and I have many, many other common interests and connections. However, he had seen and documented our tree and two others on our street in Columbus several years ago. Unfortunately, the other two were destroyed a few years ago. What a wild coincidence!

Editor's Note: The location of this old Torreya tree is 538 Front Avenue, Columbus GA. Columbus is right along the Chattahoochee River, which would have been the main rich-soils (floodplain) conduit for Torreya migrations north and south for millennia, as the tree migrated in accordance with the glacial-interglacial cycle.

Leigh Brooks emailed Torreya Guardians this correspondence from her colleague, Jerry Adams from Bainbridge GA, in May 2009: "Stopped by Columbus, Ga. the other day and two of the three torreya trees that grew on the river just south of downtown have been cut down. The remaining one is still living but very diseased. Next door neighbor said the house with the two trees changed hands about six years ago and they cut them down... I last saw the three trees in 2002 and of the two that got cut down, one was in really good shape. Mark Garland told me about the trees. He grew up in Columbus. Mark Garland is a respected botanist in Florida."