Reports by Torreya Guardians Volunteers Listed chronologically from most recent • July 2026/ Connie Barlow/ Absence of PALEOHISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE keeps assisted migration of native trees and endangered plants seriously lagging    LEFT is an image and excerpt of a June 2026 document I added to the chronological "Assisted Migration Scholarly Links" page on our Torreya Guardians website. As webmaster, I initiated that webpage in 2007 — which was when Florida Torreya became the poster plant for assisted migration underway. Back then, our network of citizen naturalists (we are still not an NGO) had not yet garnered the hostility of botanical gardens who were unwilling to take that measure themselves. Meanwhile the forestry research community in USA and Canada found us useful (at a distance) because we helped a left-behind relictual species move hundreds of miles north. By comparison, their ongoing experimentation looked moderate and thereby reasonable. Click the image at left to read the full article, which is unusual in that it mentions FLORIDA TORREYA without outright hostility toward we "activists". Also unusual (compared to the early years of debate) is that the 2026 section of the Scholarly Links page it resides within contains only one other excerpted article. And I found nothing of significance in 2025 to even post a section for that year. This contrasts sharply with the first dozen years of debate and experimentation. WHY? THE PROBLEM: Connie Barlow writes: Researchers in the discipline of CONSERVATION BIOLOGY make no mention of the Pleistocene and Holocene vast geographic shifts in species ranges (and commingling of plants in transit into "novel ecosystems"). Meanwhile PALEOECOLOGISTS who could readily provide data on the hundreds of miles of glacial/interglacial climate adjustments have gone missing.      The consequence for endangered plants (such as Florida Torreya) is severe: Lacking any such paleo perspective, conservation biologists are stymied by the theoretical risk that a plant species surviving only in small or scattered numbers might become invasive when moved north. Costly, slow, and utterly scary (for them) experiments must be undertaken and completed first. And thus, little is done. The papers, however, keep rolling on ("publish or perish") but offer little that would be helpful on the ground to move things forward. OFFERING THE PALEO PERSPECTIVE ON FLORIDA TORREYA is something that I (as a retired science writer) have posted from the very beginning of this 20-year-old website. My own published journal articles, official comments to the federal government, and detailed commentaries that emphasize the paleo perspective are aggregated on this illustrated webpage: "Paleoecology and the Assisted Migration Debate: Why a Deep-Time Perspective Is Vital".      As I head toward the exit, maybe I will become so frustrated that I post on that page the image I keep on one of my computers, and am posting for the first time here. You see, in the eastern USA, the JAY, the ROBIN, and the PASSENGER PIGEON can be our teachers. After all, if birds were talented enough to assist plants in migrating north and south during the repeated glacial/interglacial shifts, then by golly maybe we can ask for their advice. Here is what they have told me: "Don't cross an ocean and don't cross the Great Plains." Golly, that's just what we Torreya Guardians have been doing all along!    • June 2026/ Buford Pruitt (Brevard NC)/ Historical comparative growth and site data of all his torreyas in spreadsheet format    BUFORD WROTE: I am attaching to this email a new spreadsheet covering my current in-ground FL torreya plantings. Some of the harvest, sprouting, and planting dates I have given you in the past differ. In most cases, this document will be correct, but not always. It is more accurate than what I said when you videoed me here in 2016. So in the future, this is what you should rely on. My original data table had only a few columns, mostly for photos, whereas my new columns include seed year, number of winters to germinate, relative soil moisture, planting year, canopy type, ground cover, and daily hours of summertime direct sunlight. This exercise shows me that the most important factor of growth (measured as plant height) is hours of direct sunlight per summertime day. NOTE: Readers can view Pruitt's data spreadsheet as the newest entry on the Brevard, NC webpage of Torreya Guardians. • May 2026/ Christopher Hutson/ Seedlings survived winter cold perfectly on the steep ravine slope in Peoria ILLINOIS.   PHOTO: Look for the little torreya with 3 bright green new lateral branchlets directly in front of the tall evergreen Christmas fern. EDITOR'S NOTE: Christopher Hutson's PHOTO shows excellent seedling health despite a stretch of below-zero F winter with winds in central ILLINOIS. In late 2025 he had planted 6 of his seedlings on the steep forested slope of his ravine, while burying in their containers the other 6 seedlings in his flatland garden above the ravine. Leaf damage occurred only in the garden (although they are still alive). This photo and information also appears in the ILLINOIS section of our Northern Limits torreya page. • Visit the Peoria, IL torreya page. The ABOVE PHOTO illustrates two of our established BEST PRACTICES for torreya plantings: (1) We have long recommended that within-forest plantings look for evergreen ferns to serve both as camouflage and for sharing arbuscular mycorrhizae. (2) Ever since the winter of 2025, reports from our northern planters indicate that siting torreyas on a RAVINE SLOPE is ideal for preventing winter injury. • May 2026/ Fred Bess (Ohio)/ Experimental T. nucifera female buds were receptive too early to catch the T. taxifolia pollen releasing now.    FRED BESS is the northern-most producer of torreya seeds in North America. Visit his Cleveland (Parma) OHIO torreya page for a chronological list of his observational reports. LEFT: A photo of the sole T. nucifera I am experimenting with that comes from a rooted branchlet cut from the Buffalo NY female tree. POLLEN on my male T. taxifolia trees was shed over the past week. Either T. nucifera and T. taxifolia are not compatible or, I don't know. All the female arils on the nucifera have dropped off. Apparently none were pollinated. Meanwhile, the cutting-grown female taxifolia looks to have plenty of developing arils and is only a few feet from the nucifera. EDITORIAL NOTE: Nucifera is the northern-most species of genus Torreya in Asia. A possible explanation for earlier bud receptivity than our Florida species is that nucifera has evolved to respond to lower-temperature signs of spring than has taxifolia. • May 2026/ Dijon Guite/ Wild-genetics seeds germinate after 2 winter stratifications   Dijon Guite writes: "The seeds I collected from Lamar's place (Cowee Valley) & Tessentee Bottomlands NC on my southerly trip two years ago have started to sprout! I didn't keep them separated, but I think I was told all the trees they came from were sourced from the Blairsville GA wild repository, so it shouldn't matter too much. I've thrown them in a large communal pot for now: ~30 or so." • April 2026/ Michael Heim / Winter 2026 torreya injuries document NW Wisconsin as too cold for Torreya    MIKE HEIM reports: The T. taxifolia that brushed off -30F last winter died unexpectedly this winter. It was covered by deep snow before the temps even went lower than the teens! I think that the heavy wet snowcover killed it. CONCLUSION: Winters in NW Wisconsin are now determined to be TOO COLD for Torreya taxifolia. • Visit the Hayward, Wisconsin torreya page for full documentation. • April 2026/ Connie Barlow / Updated the "Northern Limits" page to include photos/text submitted by planters in 4 northern states    Torreya planters in NEW HAMPSHIRE, OHIO, and MICHIGAN photo-documented and reported on winter-kill results. All but one reported winter-kill levels were on the order of "not unusual". LEFT TWO PHOTOS: Fred Bess of Parma/Cleveland OHIO reported, as always, that the street-side of his tall torreyas received the most damage. On the bright side, he reports that such damage "serves as a kind of pruning prompt for the tree to grow densely." • VISIT our NORTHERN LIMITS webpage and scroll down to see the 2026 documentation in OHIO, NEW HAMPSHIRE, and at two locations in MICHIGAN. Note: The "Northern Limits" webpage was initiated a year ago to document the effects on Torreya of the record-setting sub-zero week in January 2025. • April 2026/ Fred Bess and Connie Barlow / Seed-producing FEMALE hit by storm-falling tree    PARMA/CLEVELAND OHIO: Sadly, a spring storm knocked over a large blue spruce from the neighbor's property that broke the top off the FEMALE torreya: which has been producing seeds every year since 2018. Fred is going to leave it alone and watch how it recovers. Connie predicts the tree will launch one or more basal sprouts to grow so rapidly that by summer's end the basal tips will have become the new top. VISIT Fred's webpage • April 2026/ Fred Bess and Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians featured in assisted migration podcast Since 2017, students in environmental sciences at Brown University can participate in a podcast program called "Possibly"whose tagline is: "Sick and Tired of Environmental Gloom and Doom? Want to know what you can do?"    The April 14 episode, "Activists are migrating a tree north from Florida. Is that a good idea?", featured Torreya Guardians. Fred Bess (our Cleveland/Parma Ohio torreya grower) spoke on the plus side of the question: "Our goal, our mission, is to preserve Torreya taxifolia, because of its status as critically endangered. There are less than about 500 trees left in the wild because of a disease that's killing them. Move the trees north away from their natural habitat, their current natural range, and the disease does not show itself." Dov Sax, a Brown University professor, cautioned, "There are a lot of really interesting ethical questions, everything from, are we obligated to try to save species from human induced climate change to if we do take those actions, are we risking causing more harm?" • April 2026/ Clint Bancroft / Tennessee Torreya produces pollen for the first time    CLINT BANCROFT (Ocoee Watershed, southwestern TN) writes: My oldest Torreya, about 15 years old, finally did a gender reveal this March: Pollen cones! Whereas the tree has always had a pretty Christmas tree shape, it is now growing more toward the afternoon and evening sun, as it is shaded by the cabin on the east. The pollen buds are all on the two lowest branches and all on the westward side. For the last 3 to 4 years, vertical growth has been 7 or 8 inches per year. I cannot be certain, but I believe there is only one upward growth spurt each year. Last year's vertical growth was about 6 inches. I can no longer reach the apical growth tip nor see it clearly, but it has obvious lateral buds (number unknown) and most likely has a vertical bud too. Last year's vertical sprouted four lateral branches. In prior years there has always been vertical AND lateral growth. • April 2026/ Connie Barlow / USF&WS Posts UPDATED RECOVERY PLAN for Florida Torreya    UPDATED RECOVERY PLAN PUBLISHED MARCH 24 Yesterday I was checking some of the linked references in the WIKIPEDIA PAGE titled "Endangered Species Act of 1973". As a volunteer wikipedian, 71% of the text on that page was written by me (and I continue to update it as needed). I finally decided to create a 6-part youtube series as a TUTORIAL of the ESA statute. The lengthiest section I added to the wiki page during the past 2.5 years is "Challenges and Controversies". It contains 29 subsection topics.   Episode 1 is 46 minutes and was posted two days ago. (It is not part of our Torreya Guardians VIDEO playlist.) The news here, rather, is that when I clicked on the official Florida Torreya USF&WS webpage, I found that the UPDATED PLAN is now available. ACCESS: Official Plan   OR   Official Plan as marked-up by Barlow Note: Colors on the marked-up copy: GREEN is important; PINK mentions Torreya Guardians; BLUE discusses pathogens (a second newly named fungus, Parvodontia relampaga, discovered); PURPLE is error (rare). • March 2026/ Fred Bess, Lucas Machias, and Connie Barlow/ The lone old male torreya in Columbus GEORGIA has its clones planted in the city park.    Lucas Machias alerted Torreya Guardians to an important Facebook post in February about an old, lightning-struck Florida torreya living in the front yard of the street in Columbus GEORGIA right along the Chattahoochee River. We've had for a long time on our website a photo- and text-rich page of everything we could learn about the history of the Columbus GA tree. Fred Bess posted a helpful response on the Facebook entry, which has now been added to our own webpage about the Columbus GA tree here and below. Fred wrote: "This post was shared with me. I am an original member of the Torreya Guardians organization. This is an excellent project, may I add? the cutting grown plants are not seedlings but clones of the parent tree. Torreya taxifolia is dioecious, meaning male and female on separate trees. Since these are all clones of the same tree, they will never produce seed unless there is a tree of the opposite sex nearby. Having a dozen trees is wonderful! It does not however help the species recover from endangerment. I have 5 T. taxifolia trees up here in Cleveland, both male and female I got many years ago from Woodlander's in Aiken SC. I would be happy to contribute seeds or seedlings of the species that would not only enhance the promenade but also benefit the species. Cheers!" • March 2026/ Connie Barlow and John Hiner/ Documented a lone torreya tree in Georgia: 7 feet tall    • East of Atlanta, near Arabia Mountain State Park: A single Torreya was planted in 2017 as a one-gallon nursery plant. PHOTO LFT: Property-owner John Hiner with the 7-foot-tall torreya, March 2026. John reports no signs of disease. Given its health, he will be receiving germinated seeds from Torreya Guardians later in 2026. That will ensure companionship for this tree for potential seed production. MOST NOTABLE FACT OF THIS SITE: John reports that the torreya has remained undamaged, despite his never having put in place any caging. The only maintenance is periodically removing young Smilax briar vines. VISIT the webpage of this site. • February 2026/ Connie Barlow/ Discovered some seeds germinate DURING second winter stratification    Early February I examined the containers of stratifying torreya seeds I am keeping in my refrigerator this winter (PHOTO LEFT). I wanted to check for moisture and ensure that no mold was developing. Because the seeds are mixed with sphagnum moss, moisture was fine and there was no mold. I was astounded, however, by this observation: Both of the 2024 seed harvests (Clinton NC and Cleveland OH) each had a small portion of seeds ALREADY GERMINATING. Other torreya seed handlers may have noticed this before, but it was news to me. I had assumed that actual or artificial spring warmth was required to induce germination after the second winter. See images and text of this event in the "Detecting signs of pre-germination" part of our lengthy PROPAGATION page. • February 2026/ Connie Barlow/ Posted new Torreya Guardians video: Episode 40    Episode 40 of the Torreya Guardians video series is a celebration of how natural history observations and experimentation by citizen volunteers can be a cost-free and very effective way for saving endangered plants. Institutional funding and action may be vital in the early years (as it was for the Torreya taxifolia tree beginning in 1984). But for the past two decades, it has been a network of devoted citizens who pioneered best practices for implementing "assisted migration" poleward of an ancient conifer that had been left behind in Florida when the Ice Age ended. WATCH Episode 40   (35 mins)   List of all videos • January 2026/ Connie Barlow/ A northern arboretum foundation news article recognizes importance of northward Torreya plantings "Safeguarding the Florida Torreya", by Jason Morse, Aboretum Foundation, Spring 2024   EXCERPTS: ... Scientists at the Atlanta Botanical Garden, which is leading the official recovery effort, may have gotten some clues about the best approach to take from the unusual natural history of the species. As the climate cooled during the most recent Ice Age, many plant and animal species died off in the northern parts of their range. Before that, it is likely that the primary habitat of T. taxifolia had been found in southern Appalachia, hundreds of miles north of the current range.     The fragment of cooler habitat provided by the shady ravines along the Apalachicola may have allowed for a linear projection of the native range to be extended nearly to the Gulf of Mexico during the last warm period, helped along by the buoyancy of the fruits hitching a ride on the south-flowing river system.     When the Ice Age arrived, this southern finger of habitat acted as a refuge for the species after it had died off farther north. Many plant and animal species survived ice ages in such glacial refugia, and most were able to spread back into their original ranges after the climate re-warmed (starting around 12 thousand years ago). Perhaps because of the southward-flowing nature of the Apalachicola river system, Torreya taxifolia never made it back. Note by Connie Barlow, webmaster: At least twice a year I use Google Scholar and other searches to look for articles and peer-reviewed papers pertaining to Torreya taxifolia. The above 2024 article is so important that I excerpted and linked it on these pages on our website: Natural History and Efforts to Save. • January 2026/ Connie Barlow/ MORRIS ARBORETUM (affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania) is added to our Torreya Pennsylvania page   In 2018 Paul Camire, Torreya planter in Capac MI, documented Morris Arboretum as having planted 5 specimens of Florida torreya in his lengthy report: Ex-situ Specimens of Torreya taxifolia. But it wasn't until this month that I (Connie Barlow) tracked down some crucial images and lots of information on the assisted migration experiment ongoing at this arboretum in Philadelphia. So I have just posted a distinct webpage for the Morris Arboretum torreyas, and linked that to our Pennsylvania torreya page. • January 2026/ Larry Brasher and Connie Barlow/ One of the fast-growing pair of torreyas in northeast ALABAMA is suddenly injured by voles    This month Larry Brasher (photo left) reported that vole injury on one of his two torreyas was causing inner leaves on one side to yellow. He wrote: "That led me to encircle each of the torreyas with six-inch diameter hardware collars. I also pushed down a layer of coarse gravel/stones some 2 to 4 inches, both inside and outside the hardware cloth. Because of the roots, I was only able to sink the hardware cloth about half an inch below the soil surface. Maybe this new installation will discourage further vole activity. Over the years I've lost other Torreya and young apple trees to voles. They seem to attack randomly." Connie then consulted the "Beware of Rodents!" section of our Torreya Guardians "Propagation" page and found no likely cause in rodent damage reported by other torreya planters: no birdfeeder, no nearby logs, no mulch, and likely no special attraction of the surrounding groundcover (invasive exotic periwinkle). "The mystery remains," she concludes. View Brasher Springs torreya page. • January 2026/ Paul Camire and Connie Barlow/ Another crucial article added to our list of "Classic Writings on Florida Torreya (1834 to 1984)" Since our inception 2 decades ago, Torreya Guardians have been on the lookout for Classic Writings on Florida Torreya (1834 to 1984). This month Paul Camire discovered online a 1945 magazine article that is unsurpassed for describing torreya's abundance as of that date, its preference for narrow and steep ravines, and its long-recognized status as a left-behind glacial relict. That article now appears in full on our website here: "Torreya, a Tree with Possibilities".    Key excerpts of the 1945 article that pertain to torreya's relictual status include: Torreya is a fugitive species, following its slow retreat from northern climes during the Ice Age. There seems little danger of its exinction, since it reproduces profusely enough, although ultra-locally, from seed and by means of sucker-sprouts, but so far it has failed to retrace its steps northward, except possibly for its slow creep into Georgia toward Bainbridge.      ... The botanists who explored the Apalachicola Bluffs in 1934 found Torreya a well-established part of the climax and sub-climax forest types found there. It has been suggested that it be planted on steep stream banks in the Georgia mountains, in a habitat simlar to that apparently preferred by its cousin in the Sierra, the California Nutmeg. The fact that torreya's present site is largely underlain with the Tampa limestone does not mean necessarly that it demands an alkaline or neutral soil, but does suggest that the tree also should be tested in the limestone covers and valleys of the eastern Tennesseee mountains. A specimen is reported as hardy in Rochester, N.Y. • December 2025/ Connie Barlow (founder of Torreya Guardians)/ END OF YEAR REPORT    Happy to report that the November-October short reports below include photos from all 4 of our large-volume private sites where we annually harvest torreya seeds: established plantings at Clinton and Mt. Olive NC, plus at the homes of two of our own Torreya Guardians: Fred Bess in Cleveland OH and Lamar Marshall in the mountains of western North Carolina. Some of these seeds are delivered or mailed to established and new planters soon after they are harvested. Most will be distributed next (or even the following) spring, as this species requires 2 winter stratifications. (But see the report directly below about California torreya germinating in large numbers after only one winter.) Here I will point to how some of our leading volunteer planters also act in behalf of other plant species. Since retiring to my home state of Michigan, I have been planting our native pawpaw, Asimina triloba, for subcanopy ecological restoration. Here is a sampling of 4 additional Torreya Guardians: Jack Johnston (GA): Well before he began playing several crucial roles in Torreya Guardians, Jack gained the moniker "Mr. Stewartia" for helping this rare native camellia gain yard space with many residents of the southern Appalachians. Clint Bancroft (TN) probably has the most genetically diverse collection of Florida Yew in the USA. Far to the north, Fred Bess (OH) regularly delivers several hundred torreya seeds to me here in southern Michigan enroute to the annual Orchid Society meeting nearby, where he sells orchids grown in his basement.      Our farthest north outpost that tests the extreme cold limits of torreya is Mike Heim (WI). Above is a November 11 photo of his oldest surviving torreya. Below are a sampling of photos from his three decades of planting southern Appalachian species into his forest in NW Wisconsin. This is extremely long-distance assisted migration. ABOVE: Rhododenron calendulaceum, Magnolia fraseri, Magnolia acuminata, Shortia galacifolia, Ilex opaca, Leucothoe fontanesiana. • November 2025/ Don Thomas/ Half of 179 CALIFORNIA TORREYA SEEDS germinated after just one winter    DON THOMAS wrote: "I just checked some torreya seeds that I collected a year ago in Upper Stevens Creek County Park that were in storage outdoors in an above-ground pot of moist soil in a cool, shaded place. To my surprise, about half of them have already germinated. I have 4 more pots of 2024 seeds outside in the shade, and these also have germinating seeds." He then counted and reported his results: "The first pot had 37 seeds of which 19 were germinating. The second pot had 47 seeds of which 34 were germinating. The third pot had 49 seeds of which 28 were germinating. The fourth pot had 46 seeds of which 14 were germinating. "So out of the total of 179 seeds, 95 were germinating (53%) AFTER JUST THEIR FIRST WINTER." EDITOR'S NOTE: Don Thomas lives in San Jose, a bit south of San Francisco, which means that winters in his region where he collects seeds rarely drop below freezing. His report is very significant because volunteers who receive FLORIDA TORREYA SEEDS rarely report germination prior to TWO WINTERS of stratification. Don's full report is in our PROPAGATION page here and the CALIFORNIA page here. • Early November 2025/ Dijon Guite/ Seed harvest from two sites in central North Carolina   Since 2013, Torreya Guardians have been harvesting seeds at two private homes in central North Carolina: CLINTON (left photo) and MOUNT OLIVE (right photo). Dijon Guite drove all the way up from Florida to conduct the harvest in 2025. Estimated SEED COUNTS: 500 at Clinton and 1,000 at Mt. Olive • Clinton, NC torreya page • Mt. Olive, NC torreya page • Late October 2025/ Fred Bess/ Seed harvest from all 3 females in Cleveland OHIO FRED BESS reports on the 2025 harvest at his home in Cleveland, Ohio: LEFT is the collection from the big female. She took a bit of time off and produced a fewer number of seeds, but with large arils. MIDDLE is from the twin-trunked male/female tree. Best harvest to date from that tree. RIGHT is from the cutting-grown tree. Again, best harvest from this tree to date. I have seeds available to anyone who wants them. I only stipulate east of the Mississippi River in order to help prevent cross-pollination with T. californica. Additionally, I have a large quantity of seeds available from the big female from 2024 that are about to go into second stratification. That seed stock enables enables recipients to get a one-year head start (on the usual two-years of winter stratification). Editor's note: To contact Fred Bess by email, go to our HOME PAGE and click on his name (lower left corner). • October 2025/ Lamar Marshall/ Seed harvest at home in Cowee Valley, North Carolina    LEFT: Jack Johnston played a crucial role in the initiation of this torreya planting at the home of Lamar Marshall in the mountains of western North Carolina. October 2025 he returned to help with and document the seed harvest, which was estimated at 800 total seeds. Seed production began in 2023, and was photo-documented by Dijon Guite in 2024. Visit the Cowee Valley torreya page to see the full chronological report. • October 2025 / Connie Barlow / Caging of young seedlings is almost always essential!    As one of the main networkers of this citizen group, I have mailed a lot of seeds to a lot of people since 2013. But until my husband and I had to abandon our itinerant lifestyle in 2020 (owing to covid), I was never geographically settled enough to experiment with torreya plantings myself. Now several years into the process, I have learned what so many others already have: caging of young seedlings will almost always be necessary. Because I now have yearly access to hundreds of PAWPAW seeds collected from post-harvest Michigan orchards, I have learned that even poisonous plants will be sampled by curious herbivores unfamiliar with the species. So I plant pawpaw seeds densely in small, dispersed patches. Details are available on Barlow's Ypsilanti MI torreya page. Her success in planting pawpaw in bulk is reported in a photo-rich webpage: PAWPAW wild-planting experiments and in her October 2025 VIDEO on youtube: "Helping Pawpaw Walk - Restoration and Reciprocity for Subcanopy Forests (Michigan 2025)". • October 2025 / Paul Camire and Connie Barlow / Branch tip buds are more resistant to winterkill than are first-year leaves    This torreya in the Capac MI site offers a superb opportunity to study which vegetative areas of torreya are most vulnerable to winterkill. It may be surprising that BUDS were less susceptible to winterkill than were leaves grown during the previous summer. In the photo above, the two triplet end-branch growths of Summer 2025 indicate that the overwintering vegetative bud at their base had survived. But just below that bud site, the leaves of Summer 2024 are falling away. (When will replacement leaves regrow?) Notable, too, is that the stem's central apical bud survived, and sent upward nearly 2 inches of new growth. • Visit the Capac, MI torreya page. • September 2025 / Connie Barlow / Another successful wild planting using Droste cans    September 28, 2025: A torreya seedling emerges from a Droste can — after its seed had spent 3 winters buried in that spot. Its emergence thus happened at the end of its third summer. Three summers of slow growth is not surprising, as it is in one of our northern-most experimental plantings. (Learn about our experiments to assess northward range limits.) See more photos of another Droste can experiment underway at a planting in Charlottesville, Virginia. That experiment began with seeds harvested in 2024. • September 2025 / Connie Barlow / Cover story of the journal Nature establishes the "TREE MICROBIOME"    Since 2023, the Torreya Guardians website has been posting news and excerpts of journal articles on why it is crucial for the USF&WS and botanical gardens in Georgia to re-evaluate their fears of distributing torreya seeds that was based on research in the early 2010s. A paradigm shift identifies the "seed microbiome" as a subset of the "plant microbiome" and now the cover story of one of the top science journals establishes distinct microbiomes in the sapwood and heartwood of trees: "A diverse and distinct microbiome inside living trees". HISTORY: A decade ago, official seed distributions from ex situ torreya groves in northern Georgia were halted because Fusarium torreyae fungal propagules were found in all torreya seeds so tested. But now it is time to set aside the fear and reauthorize distribution of tens of thousands of torreya seeds annually for the purpose of assisted migration poleward and other potential recovery actions. Excerpts here: • "Applying the Plant and Seed Microbiome Paradigms to Florida Torreya" • WIKIPEDIA: Torreya taxifolia • September 2025 / Mike Heim / Stunning discovery in northern Wisconsin: Torreya seedlings emerging after 5 winters as seeds in forest soil    The first photo shows one of the 3 newly emerged torreyas this summer — arising from seeds planted November 2020! This entails the first documentation of torreyas emerging after 5 winter stratifications! (The other two seedlings can be seen on Mike Heim's WISCONSIN torreya page.) The second photo is of the elder torreya from the same batch of seeds harvested November 2020 in North Carolina. It had emerged several years earlier. What is astonishing is that it shows robust growth after surviving below-zero temperatures the previous winter (including -30F on two occasions during which there was no snow cover). Mike also sent a photo of one of his Dawn Redwoods (Metasequoia), which can be viewed on his Wisconsin Tertiary Rewilding page. • August 2025 / John Czerney (Michigan) / Both torreyas measure over 5 feet tall    John Czerney, specializes in conifer planting experiments at his home in SW Michigan. He first planted an Asian species, Torreya grandis, and then California torreya — without success. Then he planted two Florida torreyas. These are growing very well (despite below-zero temperatures this past winter). Visit John's Grand Rapids torreya page to see the new photos he took this month of his 5'6" and 5'4" trees. • August 2025 / Guy Sternberg (Illinois) / Tallest Torreya in Illinois is at Illinois College    Guy Sternberg, who established Starhill Forest Arboretum (and donated torreya trees to nearby Illinois College), submitted the PHOTO. He wrote that the torreyas at both of the arboretum and the college "are from the same source as my second batch and are doing well with no dieback." LEFT: Dr. Laurence Zettler stands by the tallest of the torreyas at Illinois College. • August 2025 / Connie Barlow / Florida Torreya joins an Australian turtle as the main success stories globally recognized for ASSISTED MIGRATION    An August 2025 article published in Discover Wildlife online magazine continues the long-standing global recognition of assisted migration of Florida Torreya. The last paragraph is this: "With careful conversation and comprehensive policy, assisted migration could change the game for wildlife, as it has for the Florida torreya tree and western swamp turtle — and now the Guam kingfisher." It was written by Annaliese Smith and published 17 August 2025 in the online magazine, Discover Wildlife. The title: "'The ultimate meddling': What is assisted migration — and why is it so controversial among scientists?" Note: Connie is grateful that global news articles portray the success of Torreya's assisted migration — and usually without distinguishing WHO is doing it. Globally, the continuing objection to assisted migration by the two main botanical gardens in Georgia is thus not well known. The Atlanta Botanical Garden and State Botanical Garden of Georgia played crucial roles in the 1990s and early 2000s. This is when they established ex situ orchards in n. Georgia and allowed distribution of thousands of seeds produced there in those early years. (Access the FULL LIST of media mentions of Torreya Guardians that begin in 2007.) • August 2025 / Fred Bess (Ohio) / Cutting-grown female in OHIO is loaded with seeds    FRED BESS writes: Anyone for a bunch of grapes? Oh, wait, those are Torreya arils! The cutting-grown female (PHOTO LEFT) has really outdone herself. The branches are hanging low from the weight. The big female that has been loaded the last couple years is taking a break and only producing 1/4 what she did last year. As to the twin tree: The female side is producing better this year, too. When harvest approaches [late October], I'll send another update. • VISIT Fred's Torreya page: Parma (Cleveland), OHIO • July 2025 / Hazel Delcourt and Connie Barlow / The paleoecologist who inspired the founding of Torreya Guardians has 2 torreya trees at her home in Hendersonville, NC This month, retired Professor Hazel Delcourt sent Connie Barlow photos of the two torreya trees that she and her husband, Paul, had planted at their home in Hendersonville, NC. Connie writes, "I read Hazel's book upon publication in 2002. Thenceforth, I was committed to act in behalf of moving poleward a left-behind glacial relict." Forests in Peril: Tracking Deciduous Trees from Ice Age Refuges into the Greenhouse World 2002    EXCERPTS: ... "My personal and professional odyssey as a historian of deciduous trees has brought me to the realization that the future of the eastern deciduous forest is now at risk. (p. 97) ... We can provide corridors to allow for species to migrate successfully in the face of climate change. We may also need to be prepared to transplant endangered species to new locations where climate will be favorable." (p. 207) Note: Delcourt's papers are cited in the 1986 recovery plan for Florida Torreya. _____ • View the Hendersonville, NC page new in 2025. • July 2025 / Connie Barlow / July 2025 rewilding results in southern MICHIGAN (no caging)   It is fortunate that many volunteer planters of Florida torreya install wire cages to protect against herbivory. Since retiring to southeastern Michigan during the covid lockdowns, I have tested torreya's ability to survive herbivory both in a deer-exclusion tree fall zone (photo above left) and in an urban river-front zone (pink ring) with no deer (but with rabbits and a woodchuck). The results have been unsatisfactory; there have been tremendous losses. Even so, torreya occasionally astounds in its ability to recover from severe herbivory. VISIT the July 2025 section of the Ypsilanti MI page for photos of the survivors. • July 2025 / Doju Layton / New webpage for a second volunteer planter of Torreya in Indiana    This planting project involves two main sites in southern Indiana: private land in western Lawrence County and a conserved property owned by Sycamore Land Trust in eastern Monroe County. The seeds successfully stewarded for this project were collected autumn 2022 from the Clinton NC site. They proved to be the most successful batch for me so far. Some sprouted seeds were planted directly on my private land in Lawrence County before they had sent up shoots. These survived a harsh winter and even a tornado in March 2024, though they remain comparatively small. Others were potted and then transplanted in October 2024 to the Sycamore Land Trust property (e.g., PHOTO LEFT). VISIT the Bloomington, IN torreya webpage for more photos and reports. • June 2025 / Christopher Hutson / Seedlings now in Peoria IL from 2023 Cleveland OH seeds   28 JUNE 2025: I now have a dozen baby torreyas, and a few that have not come up yet. I moved them back under the tree canopy for shade. They're protected in a wire cage. • VISIT Christopher's Peoria ILLINOIS torreya page. • June 2025 / Connie Barlow / Google AI creates strikingly accurate description of Torreya Guardians On the Torreya Guardians homepage, you will see an internal Google Search box. As founder of the group, and continuing as webmaster, I often use this feature to locate where a topic or planting site appears on this website. This morning, for the first time, the top item yielded by a search presented a Google AI response. This free service now regularly appears during google queries, even for those of us who haven't asked for or purchased any AI. "Wow!" was my first response, as it summarized our website superbly: __________    IMAGE LEFT: I then switched to the external (full Internet) mode. Impressed again, but now with deepening alarm. In both cases, I could not have summarized Torreya Guardians nearly as well for a wide audience. Yes, I wrote 4 popular science books in the 1990s, but I could not have written about this project in a way as accurate, understandable, and concise as could the AI. I have long feared for young writers and journalists, but now my fear is based on personal experience! • June 2025 / Connie Barlow / TG HOMEPAGE improved, with link to a new and detailed SITEMAP    The Torreya Guardians network of volunteers was launched in 2005, and this website along with it. Two decades onward, I am still webmaster (and still writing in the original html computer code!). At age 73, however, I realize that the network and the website need to be prepared for my departure — especially if severe decline or death arrives suddenly. I have just completed a very detailed SITEMAP of this now-immense website. It reads as a lengthy table of contents, with all entries linked. The image left is now on the homepage, too. Check it out! And if you are looking for something in particular, enter a keyword or phrase into the GOOGLE SEARCH BOX at the lower left of the homepage (it's also at the end of all webpages). Google does the search WITHIN this one website. • June 2025 / Jake Wells and Connie Barlow / New growth on torreya seedling in NW Illinois after winter frost damage    Jake Wells has young torreya seedlings in Alpha, Illinois. He took this photo in early June. Self-repair after winter-kill is well underway. The apical buds display the classic behavior of post-injury growth. The good news is that, with multiple new leaders, the resultant shrublike growth will make the torreya better able to compensate after any new injuries by frost or herbivores. Visit our Northward Limits webpage for young seedling photos in Wisconsin that were similarly damaged by extreme winter cold in 2025. Look at the map on that page and see that Alpha (well north of Springfield, IL) would have been hit by a winter low in the -20F range. • June 2025 / Center for Plant Conservation / Research at Florida State University on silica phytoliths for boosting Torreya's disease defense    "Investigating Silica Depositional Capacity in the Critically Endangered Florida Torreya (torreya Taxifolia) and Its Relevance for Plant Health": The Florida Torreya (Torreya taxifolia) is one of the most endangered trees in the world, thought to be principally threatened by an infectious species of fungus. A potential treatment lies with phytoliths, microscopic deposits of silica produced by plants. When they form between cells, phytoliths inhibit disease progression by acting as barriers to pathogens. Florida Torreya in the wild produce few phytoliths. If they were to produce more, the tree might successfully fight off its devastating fungal infections. In partnership with the Atlanta Botanical Garden, this project examines phytolith depositional capacity in the Florida Torreya by growing them in soils with added silicon. Measuring phytolith abundance after growth will reveal whether low-phytolith accumulation in Florida Torreya is due to a physiological tendency to exclude silicon or simply a lack of bioavailable silicon in its environment — insights with great relevance in assessing the potential of silicon as a promising therapeutic avenue to protect and restore fungally-infected Florida Torreya. • June 2025 / Connie Barlow / 54-page PDF document prepared to submit to U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to influence policy decisions for the Florida Torreya recovery plan update underway.    The recovery plan for Florida torreya is now undergoing a 5-year review. The 1973 Act requires such plans to include policies based on "the best available science". Updating the science foundation to shift from a "latent pathogen" view of a fungal microbe to a "mutualistic endophyte" interpretation would empower government to overturn a decade-long policy of two botanical gardens in Georgia that has blocked distribution of tens of thousands of seeds produced annually in the ex situ plantings they control. Connie Barlow assembled a chronological, excerpted list of 44 key papers setting forth the new PLANT and SEED MICROBIOME PARADIGMS, including papers that apply the new understanding to the genus Fusarium, and the focal species: Fusarium torreyae.             ACCESS the 54-page PDF or the webpage version. • May 2025 / Leor Pantilat, Connie Barlow, and Don Thomas / California Torreya regrowth after CZU fire.    LEFT: May 2025, Leor Pantilet visited a section of Butano State Park near Santa Cruz that had been hard hit by the CZU fire in 2020. Unlike Coast Redwoods, the bark of Torreya californica is not fireproof (see the orange, barkless stems). But, as with redwoods, basal regrowth can be profuse. RIGHT: Connie Barlow took this photo July 2005 on a visit with Lee Klinger into a canyon bottom (Scotts Creek) also in the CZU fire. This was a very large living torreya, with strong indication upwards that it was merged basals, possibly with thousand-year-old roots. The same will likely happen with the two sets of basals in the left photo. Visit our California Torreya page to see these and other photos and information. Don Thomas is the main contact for TorreyaGuardiansWest, which Don founded in 2022. • May 2025 / Bayli Brosette and Connie Barlow / Seeds on Louisiana torreya tree are already full-size.    On May 23, Bayli Brosette (curator of the Caroline Dormon Preserve in LOUISIANA), sent this photo of full-size torreya seeds. She wrote: "The Torreya near log cabin is full of fruit. I counted 30 on just the lower branches near trail from the golf cart." The torreya tree (center photo, Nov 2018 by Connie Barlow) was planted in the early 1950s by Caroline Dormon. The seeds are full-size — but far from fully developed inside. The experience of Torreya Guardians is that if a seed is harvested before October, it will have an unhardened shell beneath the fleshy covering. The seeds need to turn yellow or orange with flesh easily peeling off. Note: Fred Bess in Cleveland OHIO has been producing seeds every year since 2018. By the start of July, Fred's seeds are full-size, but he waits till the end of October to ensure full ripeness before harvesting. To learn more, visit the "When and how to HARVEST SEEDS" section of our Propagation page. • May 2025 / Mike Heim and Clint Bancroft / Good news on post-winter Torreya health in Wisconsin.    Mike Heim of northwestern WISCONSIN sent this photo on May 17, exclaiming "the buds are swelling!" Close to the ground, this Florida torreya (growing from seed planted directly into the forest) survived a remarkable series of below-freezing temperatures last winter. Mid-January had (in degrees F) 7 days in a row of -13, -22, -24,-30, -2, -11, -10. And again in early February: 5 days of -8, -5, -14, -25, -14, -3. Not surprisingly, Clint Bancroft near Chattanooga, TENNESSEE reported on May 16, "there was zero winter freeze/burn damage or death." Note: Mike's torreyas in Wisconsin are 750 miles poleward of Clint's in Tennessee! • May 2025 / Connie Barlow / Updated and reformated the lengthy chronological LEARNINGS page.    As with this "REPORTS" page, the "LEARNINGS" page is also chronological. And it is photo-rich and lengthy. This is the only page that features summaries of all the most important discoveries by Torreya Guardians over the past 2 decades. A PDF version (LEFT) is also posted for the USF&WS to cite in their 2025 recovery plan update for Florida torreya. • May 2025 / Connie Barlow / Seven torreya growers in northern states post photos of frost damage from below-zero F winter episode This is the first time our group has assembled photos of many sites showing variable amounts of winter damage. The documentation is so important that we have assembled a NEW WEBPAGE that offers strong evidence revealing the "Northward Limits for Florida Torreya Assisted Migration". CITIZEN SCIENCE is indeed valuable.    The 2025 mid-January cold extreme was one of the most severe polar episodes in recent years. The results range from no frost damage in Illinois and almost-none in Michigan to the most severe in northwest Wisconsin. Henceforth, we have solid evidence to say: (1) Survival is generally good to excellent in the map's GREEN plant zones. (2) That far north, choose sites to avoid the worst windchill exposures. (The southwest Ohio site is good evidence for this recommendation.) (3) Although full-sun sites in the southern Appalachians are unbeaten for growth rates, our planter in northeastern Ohio has been producing seeds since 2018 — and the photos of his lush sunny grove are astonishing! • April 2025/ Eleanor McCain / Variation in budburst on same hillslope in Alabama    Seedlings planted on same hillslope in November 2024 show great variation in budburst in mid April 2025. • Visit the Ashland, Alabama torreya page for more photos. It is in a large forest at the base of the Cheaha Mountains. • April 2025 / Connie Barlow / How to keep up-to-date on USF&WS actions pertaining to Florida Torreya In 2016, the Georgia State Supervisor of the USF&WS signed an agreement put forth by the Georgia Plant Conservation Alliance to cease communications with Torreya Guardians. (Torreya Guardians were not given an opportunity to learn of nor provide counter-evidence against this agreement.)    Ever since, we have had to keep track of ongoing actions by the agency by periodically visiting these two pages of the "ECOS - Environmental Conservation Online System": (1) Florida torreya (Torreya taxifolia). Here is where one can look for new entries of proposed actions and official documents, such as those pertaining to recovery plan updates, species status assessments, and petitions or petition decisions. (2) "Implementation Progress" via "Recovery Plan Ad Hoc Report results". Note: To see all of the currently 40 entries, first look at the upper left part of the table and click "Show 50 entries." Then scroll to the right for the table topic titled "Comments." There you can scroll downward to see all the text details for each of the 40 items. • April 2025/ Brian Beduhn and Connie Barlow / Torreyas at Biltmore Gardens survived Hurricane Helene    Brian Beduhn reported that, although the low-elevation entrance and grounds of the Biltmore Estate had been flooded, the gardens were largely unharmed. This included the historically important torreya grove, and its offspring. LEFT is one of original 1939 plantings of Florida Torreya. MIDDLE is one of several next-generation "volunteers" (squirrel-planted?) encountered by Brian Beduhn during his end-of-March inventory. For more torreya photos and commentary from March 2025: Biltmore page on this website. • March 2025 / Daein Ballard / NEW HAMPSHIRE torreya planter's photos of winter-kill leaves    DAEIN BALLARD contributed 13 photos (full view and close-ups) of 3 of his torreyas in southern NEW HAMPSHIRE. He reports that the oldest one (full sun) is about a dozen years old, and "nearly 6 feet tall". In this northern state, winter leaf-kill and minor dieback is apparently routine: "I haven't seen anything atypical when it comes to winter dieback on any of the torreya trees." And yet, his tallest, fully exposed tree seems to be "getting healthier and growing faster every year. It put out 6 laterals on its top during its 2nd-stage growth in August last year, and many more on its branches — giving the tree a much fuller appearance." Visit Daein's NEW HAMPSHIRE torreya page, for the photo-rich history of this torreya experiment far in the north. • March 2025 / Connie Barlow / Two new Torreya sites added to our ILLINOIS page    Last fall I had a number of email correspondences with the founder of Starhill Forest Arboretum in Illinois: Guy Sternberg. The PHOTO here is one of the largest half-dozen Florida Torreya trees in that arboretum, which is now managed by Illinois College. Finally, I have posted that photo and two others, along with additional information and excerpts of our correspondence, onto a new webpage dedicated to the Starhill torreya project: Starhill Forest Arboretum torreya page That new (and vitally important!) posting came about because a few days ago a torreya seed recipient in Illinois sent me photos of his first seed germinations. So I added that documentation to our Illinois torreya page, and then created a unique page for his site, too: Peoria IL torreya page. Finally, our Illinois torreya page matches the number of sites (4) shown for Illinois on the eastern USA map that appears on our homepage. • March 2025 / Connie Barlow / Wollemia example of "metacollections" for critically endangered plants    A new article in Yale Environment 360 offers a new term for offsite conservation of gravely imperiled plants: "metacollection." The "living fossil" tree of Australia, Wollemia nobilis, is not only the most deserving for massive beyond-native-range plantings. It appears to be in the lead. The article, by veteran botanical journalist Janet Marinelli, is superbly written and very informative. The concept and current execution of metacollections is a huge step forward. The reason I am posting it here is for Torreya Guardians volunteers and supporters to learn of this shift in how botanical gardens are thinking globally. Chief scientist of the Atlanta Botanical Garden, Emily Coffey, is quoted twice in this article. A harsh critic of Torreya Guardians, Dr. Coffey nonetheless expresses support for this concept. Perhaps it is the terminology that makes it possible for institutions to begin approving plantings in much bigger geographical scope and population size. After all, the word "collection" is in the term. In contrast, here are the terms used on this website since our beginning 20 years ago: "assisted migration" and "rewilding." Entries below report on a new term on offer by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that our network of planters could consider: "experimental populations." • March 2025 / Connie Barlow / Updated our LEARNINGS page with an aggregate of the 3 report entries immediately below    For those serious about best practices for nurturing Florida torreya and with where and how to conduct assisted migration northward of this "left-behind glacial relict," the most important page to study is our LEARNINGS page. The Learnings page is chronological. Thus, the crucial learnings of the 3 entries immediately below on this reports page have been aggregated into the photo-rich (and lengthy) newest entry on our Learnings page. • March 2025/ Bayli Brossette and Connie Barlow / Squirrel-dispersed seedling discovered away from the mother torreya in Lousiana    Bayli Brossette, curator of the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve in Louisiana, discovered a leaning torreya seedling (left) about 15 yards away from the Mother Torreya (right). This is the first seedling documented far enough away from the parent tree to have not just dispersed by gravity. The disperser must have been a squirrel. Bayli sent these photos to Connie Barlow, who would advise the neighborhood squirrels to bury torreya seeds beneath a deciduous tree next time. The reason this seedling is leaning is that an evergreen American Holly is shading it year-round overhead. Scroll down the photos of the Dormon Preserve seedlings section to see the photos showing the environment. • February 2025 / Connie Barlow / New hour-long video aggregates natural history observations and oral history in Florida and Louisiana    EPISODE 39 of the Torrey Guardians video series: "Where NOT to plant the endangered Florida Torreya" Photos and videos from 2007 through 2025 are aggregated here tree by tree to offer a natural history and oral history opportunity to understand several factors that make flat upland plantings in the southern-most states lethal for torreya, absent irrigation and occasional application of agricultural lime. This contrasts with the ongoing success of downslope and ravine plantings at the two nature preserves featured here: Shoal Sanctuary in the western Florida panhandle and Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve in northern Louisiana. CONCLUSIONS by Connie Barlow and advocacy for: (1) officially designating both preserves as "experimental populations" and (2) having seeds donated from the 2 ex situ plantings of wild genetics in northern Georgia for planting in the ravines and other downslopes of both preserves. • February 2025 / Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians will nominate two torreya plantings for official designation as "experimental populations."    LEFT: The owners of Shoal Sanctuary, northwest FLORIDA, purchased potted torreya plants in 2000. In 2015, Torreya Guardians donated 40 seeds for their project to expand. BELOW: Caroline Dormon planted 3 Florida torreya seedlings into her family forest in Louisiana circa 1950. Now, the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve — supports a mother tree surrounded by baby torreyas. Because both sites are at the same latitude as the "historical range" of Florida torreya, they have the best chance to secure "experimental population" designation in accordance with the July 2023 regulatory change. • February 2025/ Clint Bancroft / Documenting an established torreya heading upward in big bursts Connie Barlow reports: These 2 photos were taken in February by Clint Bancroft in his forest east of Chattanooga, Tennessee.    Clint shows in the first image that this segment of one-year's vertical growth measures 13 inches. In the second image, we see that once a torreya is established with plenty of shrubby branches and leaves for photosynthesis, it may be willing to zoom upwards — if it senses that nothing above is shading it out. The arrows indicate each yearly growth spurt, so this torreya has been growing upward about a foot for each of the past 3 years. In the southern Appalachians, Torreya Guardians who plant in sunny locations can expect 2 bursts of growth each summer season: one upward and one establishing a new radial branching group at the highest section (in either order). As well, existing branches will grow outward with new branchlets at their tips. Torreyas under a deciduous canopy may fail to send the leader upward for several years in a row. Instead, torreya searches for sunlight by growing existing branches outward. • February 2025 / Clint Bancroft and Connie Barlow / Squirrels planted another torreya!    (Connie Barlow writes): I received an email today from Clint Bancroft, with a photo of a now-third example of a squirrel being a skilled planter of a torreya seed. Somehow the squirrel was able to steal this seed from a very protected winter stratification site and then securely planted it for future eating — as squirrels are skilled at doing. Clint sent me the photo, with this text: "This little guy was sitting right there in a bed of irises. How did he get there?? Obviously it had to be a squirrel, but how did he get the seed?" See the previous 2 examples of squirrels assisting Clint in the October and December 2019 entry, on Clint's Ocoee Watershed TN torreya page. • January 2025/ Dijon Guite and Clint Bancroft / Healthy Torreyas 80 miles west of native range    (Connie Barlow reports): Wow! Two of our Torreya Guardians, Dijon Guite and Clint Bancroft, visited a privately owned nature preserve just 80 miles west of Torreya State Park. Shown at left are two of the four trees planted in 2001 by owners Robert and Chris Larson in 2001. These tall torreyas are in the upland part of the Larson's 115-acre Shoal Sanctuary preserve, which is fire-managed for long-leaf pine. The four upland torreya trees were planted in 2001, when it was still possible for Florida nurseries to stock and sell (in intrastate commerce) to private landowners. WATCH my own video-documentation in 2015 there to hear Chris talk about how these 4 trees are automatically watered and sometimes limed. NEXT STEPS: The full and photo-rich report will be added next month to the existing Shoal Sanctuary Torreya page on our Torreya Guardians website. Because the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has begun to produce a "5-year review" update of the existing (official) recovery plan, our group now has the documentation to successfully advocate for the torreyas at this location to become the first official "experimental population" for this endangered species. That opportunity only became available in 2023, when the regulations were modified to remove "historical range" as a constraint on just how far away experimental populations could be sited for any endangered species. Crucially, this population is greater than 4 trees; in 2015 Torreya Guardians donated 18 seeds for direct-planting into the moist, cool ravine habitats of the sanctuary (where there will be no irrigation). Plantings in ravine sites were documented in three videos: Episode 6 (in 2015) and Episodes 31a and 31b (in 2019). Note: The upland torreya trees offer a marvelous experiment underway that should soon be studied to answer this question: Are these trees canker-free because they never experience drought? • January 2025/ Connie Barlow / Updated the "Case Study of Agency and Institutional Failure"    Since founding Torreya Guardians in 2004/2005, I have watched our initially good relationship deteriorate with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and with the two botanical gardens in Georgia that were empowered to determine and lead recovery actions. The more we succeeded in our northward experimental populations (including seed production in Ohio in 2018) and the more good press we achieved, the more severe the ostracism. So in 2021 I produced a "case study" that had 13 elements I regarded as "failures". Given the change in administration happening now, I updated that page — which now includes a 14th failure. I am a retired science writer, so it is very technical in part. We are a citizen network, not an NGO, so it bears only my name. But I would guess that our diverse group of citizen planters will resonate with much of what I have written. NEW ITEM IN THE UPDATE: 14. FAILURE to practice "adaptive management" in accordance with the paradigm shift in botany toward a "plant microbiome" and "seed microbiome" framework. A correction would require that the identified causal agent of stem canker within Torreya's native range, Fusarium torreyae, be re-evaluated in accordance with the full spectrum of symbiotic relationships (mutualistic and commensal as well as pathogenic) that professionals have recently catalogued among the many fungal and bacterial "endophytes" in intimate association within all tissues of all plants. • January 2025/ Jordan Hackworth / New experiment on using "Droste cans" for seed planting Jordan Hackworth is a new volunteer planter in Charlottesville, VIRGINIA. He received seeds from Torreya Guardians from the Fall 2024 harvest in Mt. Olive, NORTH CAROLINA, and sent us photos and a report this month.    This is the first time anyone is using DROSTE CANS to deter rodent predation. Jordan wrote: DROSTE CANS protects seeds from digging wildlife. I've used it successfully in the past with Quercus and Fagus. Cans are treated in a fire to remove the anti-corrosive coating and have a hole punched in the bottom. Seeds are planted in the upside-down can near the hole and the can is lightly buried. By the time the seedling has outgrown the opening, the can has rusted away. As seeds germinate, I will cover them with wire cages or piles of dead brush to prevent herbivore browsing. He already has one nursery-purchased seedling planted. Visit his ongoing photo-rich report: Charlottesville VIRGINIA. • January 2025/ Clint Bancroft and John Czerney / Winter photos of tall torreyas in TN and MI    Winter snow makes it easy to show the details of torreyas too tall to photograph up close. Remarkably, these 2 photos contributed in January by our volunteer planter near Chattanooga TENNESSEE (left) and Grand Rapids MICHIGAN (right) are separated by 530 miles distance longitudinally. That puts our Michigan grower about 800 miles due north of the tiny native range where this ancient relictual conifer was in severe decline when it was declared endangered in 1984. Notice the presence of fencing against browsers in the MICHIGAN photo. In contrast, our rural TENNESSEE grower reports that deer are exceedlingly rare in his neck of the woods. • December 2024/ Paul Camire / Winter photos of 9 seedlings within-forest, Capac MICHIGAN    Two of the FULLEST seedlings beneath a deciduous forest canopy. Notice in the second photo the tall apical growth. Strong cages against deer herbivory are a necessity. Late December, 2024. View the full photo-history of the CAPAC, MI site. • December 2024/ Connie Barlow / New planting in ALABAMA versus cold winter in WISCONSIN    LEFT: Late November photo of one of 5 seedlings just planted by Eleanor McCain in her forest east of Birmingham, ALABAMA. (Visit Eleanor's new torreya photo page.) MID: Mid-December a cold wave at -16 degrees F. moved into WISCONSIN, where Mike Heim has been experimenting with Florida torreya for several years. Afterwards he took this photo; the seedling still looks healthy. • December 2024/ Connie Barlow / Updated our HOME PAGE MAP and Historic Groves map    Finishing off 2024, I updated the MAP on our home page. SEED PRODUCTION was documented this fall at two of our volunteer planting sites in western North Carolina. Marked by TURQUOISE STARS, our group has achieved 3 northward seed-producing sites, while the official recovery plan (still wedded to recovery in "historical range") has produced none. I also updated the BLUE STARS: where we have sent seeds. I eliminated sites that failed or had lost communication. The sparser MAP is on our Historic Groves webpage. All 3 of our own seed-producing sites are in PINK, along with 2 additional sites. WHITE is where seed-producers have several offspring in their surrounds ("fully naturalized"). YELLOW are mature trees with no surrounding offspring. • December 2024/ Mike Heim / Winter-time torreya beauty photo in WISCONSIN    PHOTO: Same torreya seedling in early December (and early November). "The critters ate all the wintergreen berries except for these. I suspect they got poked by the sharp needles." • VISIT the WISCONSIN TORREYA webpage to see November photos of all 16 of Mike's very young seedlings within his deer exclosure. (However, there seems to be a rabbit that finds its way in periodically). • November 2024/ Buford Pruitt / Photo report on all 16 torreyas in Brevard, NC    LEFT: One of the most beautiful of the 13 trees at or near the 6-foot height range. RIGHT: Only one of the 14 sapling-size trees has lost its top. A falling canopy branch in spring 2024 broke off the top and several branches of this one. But notice the new apical growth starting to head up again." • BREVARD, NC torreya page has photos of all. Editor's note: All 14 of Buford's saplling-size torreyas have grown from seeds harvested in 2009 and 2010. Scroll down to May 2024 to see the pair of new seedlings that arose from 2023 seeds apparently removed and replanted by a squirrel. We're betting on at least pollen appearing on some of the trees next spring, and seeds maybe in 2 years. • November 2024/ Keith Turney / Update on the 6 torreyas at Kaul Wildflower Garden, ALABAMA    LEFT: Two of the 6 torreyas at KAUL WILDFLOWER GARDEN, at Birmingham Botanical Gardens in Alabama. "The trees we have here are in good shape! We have lost one small tree since 2021 that I am aware of. But we have 6 trees currently in rather good shape. The largest and oldest of which I would estimate at nearly 6 feet tall with a diameter at the base of 1.5 inches." • KAUL torreya page. • November 2024/ Fred Bess / Photos of my front-yard torreyas plus seed count — OHIO    FINAL COUNT: Big female: 1,082 seeds Twin-tree female: 34 seeds Cutting-grown female: 26 seeds   Fred lives in Parma, a suburb of Cleveland, OHIO. • Fred's torreya page. • November 2024/ Connie Barlow / Video #38 created and posted: "DOGE for Endangered Plants - Cut costs, get results, follow our lead (Torreya Guardians)"    Having spent 20 years using an "exception" in the Endangered Species Act (just for plants), and with the official recovery plan and actions still refusing to experiment with poleward "assisted migration" of this "glacial relict", Connie was inspired to produce another video — the day after Fred Bess (Cleveland, Ohio) delivered a portion of his new seed harvest to her in Ypsilanti, Michigan. VIDEO EPISODE #38 is an hour long on youtube: "DOGE for Endangered Plants - Cut costs, get results, follow our lead (Torreya Guardians)" Open the VIDEO caption and see the time-coded table of topics. Key POLICY suggestions for the new federal administration: 25:13 CORE SECTION OF THE VIDEO: Elements of the POLICY SHIFT Connie proposes, and how a 2023 regulatory change that eliminated "HISTORICAL RANGE" as a constraint for locating "experimental populations" opens the way. 32:15 SUMMARY OF THE 2-PART POLICY SHIFT proposal: (1) Require SEED DOCUMENTATION annually by institutions in charge of the ex situ orchards of wild genetics and (2) OFFER EXCESS SEEDS (and no money) to others for experimental populations. Importance of recording "negative results." The group has proven that any planting at or south of CLEVELAND OHIO is likely to succeed. 35:40 Another POLICY FOR IMPLEMENTATION: Create a category to expedite experimental populations for PLANTS designated as "SPECIAL NEEDS SPECIES." Three thresholds: (1) Listed for 2 or more decades; (2) Recovery actions haven't worked; (3) Declining in historical range. The SE region of FWS is best place to start evaluating. • November 2024/ Bill Brodovich / New Torreya Guardian in southern Michigan (Ann Arbor) Autumn of 2024, Connie Barlow gave 21 seeds from the pot of 238 seeds she was keeping for a second winter of stratification of seeds from Fred Bess's 2023 harvest of seeds in Cleveland, Ohio. She gave these to a conifer specialist, Bill Brodovich, in Ann Arbor, MICHIGAN    I planted the Torreya seeds on November 4. I planted one seed in each of 21 one-gallon containers, and then buried the containers in the ground in my yard. Each container has a numbered tag. As an experiment, I added 1 cup of lime (calcium carbonate) to 2 containers, half a cup to two containers, and a quarter cup to 2 containers. Since the species is native to limestone bluffs, so I thought it would be interesting to see if the additional calcium affects their growth. I buried two of the seeds 2 inches deep, and all the rest 4 inches deep. I then covered the containers with fencing to keep the squirrels out. Now I have to wait out the winter — that is, if we get a winter. I can't believe how mild this fall has been. Some trees in my neighborhood are still hanging on to their brilliant leaves. • November 2024/ Joe Facendola / New seed cleaning method for the ~1,250 seeds collected in North Carolina    Since 2019, Joe Facendola (of Wilmington NC) has been collecting seeds at two homes in North Carolina: Clinton and Mt. Olive. He then prepares them for shipping and planting by volunteers. LEFT: Approx. 600 cleaned seeds collected from the pair of torreya trees in Mt. Olive. They are sitting in a half-inch mesh screen tray. Remnants of the sarcotesta that were squished off, then rinsed with the hose, are below the screen frame. METHOD: I first soak the collected whole seeds for 2 or 3 days, changing the water daily. Next I dump them out onto a .5" wire screen. I use a gloved hand to squish them around to remove the softened sarcotesta, and blast them with a jet of water from the hose while shaking the screen. They get dumped back into the bucket and rinsed with a jet of water from the hose again before getting one final rinse on the screen. • November 2024/ Joe Facendola and Connie Barlow/ New growth-form experiment launched in coastal North Carolina    JOE FACENDOLA began planting torreya seedlings in his backyard in Castle Hayne (a suburb of Wilmington) in 2023. His plants receive a lot of sunlight in his backyard, and they have no competition because they are planted on mowed lawn. Joe is the first Torreya Guardian to experiment with planting clumps of seedlings in sets of 3, each about 6 inches from the others (photo). Will this planting prove feasible for all three to grow together into a tree form? Will such clumping reduce herbivore damage to the leaders and inner branches? And once they become old enough to attract buck deer antler rubbing, will this form also reduce such damage? In November 2024, Joe planted an additional two clumps like this (photo left) in his mowed backyard, each about 10 feet away from the others. There are a total of 9 plants now, in 3 clumps. • November 2024/ Mike Heim/ Status of 16 young torreyas in northern WISCONSIN    I just finished mapping the 16 T. taxifolia in the woodland exclosure. One is a rooted-cutting planted last year. The 15 young seedlings emerged from seeds harvested in Clinton and Mt. Olive NC in November 2020. Those seeds were direct planted in Wisconsin that same month, beneath a deciduous canopy and within a fenced deer exclosure. Just 3 of total had shown up as seedlings during 2023. The other 12 showed above-ground growth for the first time this year. These findings thus document that, in northern Wisconsin, wild-planted seeds take more than the usual 2 summers to appear as seedlings. Some required 3 summers; most required 4. LEFT: Freezing nights have arrived in Wisconsin. • Mike's torreya page. • November 2024/ Fred Bess/ Parma, OHIO, photos of seed harvest from 3 female stems    Fred reports, "I harvested this year's seeds on November 2, after noticing that they were beginning to fall." Seed production was reduced from the amount in 2023, but still quite high. ESTIMATED COUNT: "Around 40 from the twin tree female, 30 from the cutting-grown female, and my big girl likely has around 800." • Fred's torreya page. • November 2024 / Connie Barlow / HISTORIC GROVES map and page updated for SITES OF NEW SEED PRODUCTION by Torreya Guardians Exactly 20 years after the late Paul S. Martin and I published in Wild Earth magazine our advocacy paper, "Bring Torreya taxifolia North — Now", two more sites of Torreya Guardians northward plantings have been documented as producing seeds.    The TWO NEW SITES are shown on this segment of map as B4 and B5 — with PINK signifying "Mature Trees Producing Seeds". (WHITE are sites fully "naturalized" because they are old enough to have offspring establishing in their surrounds. YELLOW are old and thus mature trees, but with no documented seed production.) That new plantings in North Carolina by Torreya Guardians are now producing seeds is not surprising. Notice the 5 WHITE sites in North Carolina that were planted and producing seeds before our group got started. The B1 pink site at CLEVELAND OHIO (planted by Torreya Guardian Fred Bess) is still our banner site. Seed production there began in 2018. Even that far north is proven suitable for assisted migration of our country's most famous "left behind" glacial relict: Florida Torreya. Visit our Historic Groves page, and see the new seed photos taken by Torreya Guardian Dijon Guite at B4 (Cowee Valley, NC) and at B5 (Tessentee Bottomlands Preserve). • October 2024 / Dijon Guite / Visited 3 TORREYA GUARDIANS PLANTINGS in western NC and documented SEED PRODUCTION at two of them.    DIJON GUITE is one or our newest Torreya Guardians. He happened to be visiting in North Carolina when Hurricane Helene hit. While using his own truck for transporting relief supplies to the flood victims, he took a quick side visit to our 2008 plantings at LAKE JUNALUSKA. Four torreyas are still alive there, with the tallest being the Thoreau tree (photo at left). See more of his Lake Junaluska torreya photos. On his way to wintering in Florida he visited two more plantings in North Carolina by Torreya Guardians. PHOTO BELOW LEFT: Our Cowee Valley planter, Lamar Marshall, had already reported first seeds in 2023. Dijon photo-documented the 5 full-sun trees there, with seeds on 3 of them. PHOTO BELOW: Dijon made the first documentation of seed production on some of the 30 torreyas planted in 2012 at the Tessentee Preserve. See all his photos of torreyas at Cowee Valley and Tessentee Preserve. • October 2024 / Russell Regnery / Documentation of Florida Torreya at Highlands Biological Station NC    Highlands Biological Station, in Highlands NC, is associated with Western Carolina University. Specimens of Florida torreya had apparently already been planted onsite before Torreya Guardians in 2015 served as a conduit for donated seeds (of wild genetics) from one of the two official ex situ orchards of the species in northeastern Georgia. Russell Regnery (Torreya planter near Franklin NC) had partnered with Jack Johnston (Torreya planter in NE Georgia) in 2022 as volunteers to safely transplant existing scattered specimens at the station into one area, where cross pollination could eventually occur. Russ returned in 2024 to check on the health of transplanted specimens and to photograph the tallest among them (LEFT). There is no documentation yet of seed production. • September 2024 / Don Thomas / Photos of California torreya seedlings in shade v. full light    Although this website began with a focus solely on FLORIDA TORREYA, distinct pages have been added pertaining to CALIFORNIA TORREYA. Don Thomas is the founder of TorreyaGuardiansWest, for which the main page is here: here. He sent us these two photos of an experiment he is doing at his home in San Jose, California. The differences are striking in LEAF ADAPTATIONS in full sunlight (and thus also heat) v. the usual flat leaf orientation of subcanopy shade. What is also striking is the color difference. • September 2024 / Connie Barlow / INDIANA now has a photo page on our website    SITE DESCRIPTION: Forest edge, Indianapolis TIMING: After 2 winter stratifications (of seeds harvested November 2021 at Clinton and Mt. Olive North Carolina) followed by no germinations, the seeds were assumed to be duds and were tossed into the duff at the owner's forest edge summer of 2023. Surprise! September 2, 2024 this photo was taken by a volunteer planter near Indianapolis. Clearly, this is first-year growth of vibrant young seedlings in a sunny location. This photo is thus another confirmation that it can sometimes take 3 winter stratifications for seeds to germinate. Note: During the the 2024 growing season, we added 3 new states as page links from the Torreya Guardians homepage: Illinois, Missouri, and Indiana. • August 2024 / Connie Barlow / MISSOURI now has a photo page on our website This website has state-by-state pages that can be accessed via our homepage. We have distributed seeds to some states in eastern USA that are not listed there, however. This is because, as webmaster, I only create a unique webpage for a state if someone provides a photograph of their torreya planting. However, I just added a photo and text for a MISSOURI page — because:    MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN has online very detailed and complete tabular documentation of all Torreya taxifolia accessions. Data include for each specimen current status (alive or dead), provenance, and garden location. PHOTO: The earliest acquistion that is STILL ALIVE onsite came from one of the two plants received in 1992 from the Biltmore Estate in NC. Much later, in 2018, they received from Atlanta Botanical Garden a total of 43 "plants" plus 6 "seedlings." All seedlings (2018-0053) were put into the "Greenhouse outdoors" and are listed as dead. Of the 43 "plants" from ABG in 2018, 26 were put into the "Greenhouse indoors" and all are now listed as "Transferred." Of the remaining 17 plants from ABG listed in various places onsite, 5 are listed as ALIVE. Of course, the only possible plant at a reproductive age would be the 1992 Biltmore acquisition, as in the PHOTO here. None of the other specimens have photos linked. Go to our MISSOURI page to access more information about torreya propagation at the Missouri Botanical Garden. Notably, this institution suggests that this species is "probably hardy to Zone 5" — which is significantly north of Florida! • August 2024 / Mike Heim and Court Lews / Status reports from Wisconsin and Tennessee    FAR LEFT: Photo by Mike Heim of Hayward WI, of his third newly emerged seedling this summer. All three hail from seeds harvested in Clinton and Mt. Olive NC in November 2020 and direct planted in Wisconsin that month, beneath a deciduous canopy and within a fenced deer exclosure. This photo thus documents that some seeds may take 4 winter stratifications (rather than the usual 2 or 3) before any growth shows above ground. ABOVE MID: Photo taken by Court Lewis of Unicoi TN. 2015 was the final year that superabundant seeds from the ex-situ torreya orchard at Blairsville in northern Georgia were donated to Torreya Guardians. Hence, they are wild genetics, and thus extraordinarily important for eventual seed production. The tallest is 9-feet and the photo shows how full-sun sites (requiring mowing) offer fastest growth. • August 2024 / Connie Barlow / An Update on TorreyaGuardiansWEST    In 2022, TorreyaGuardiansWEST was founded by Don Thomas. As shown in the WIKIPEDIA screen capture here, California torreya is not a listed endangered species. It is therefore a lot easier for them to obtain wild genetics seeds for their own assisted migration of this endemic California tree northward (as far as British Columbia). Learn more on the California torreya page on this website. This past week has been a flush of information-sharing emails, focusing on the ablity of the Torreya genus (in California and Asia) to attain great age and size — but always in the mountains and usually on steep slopes. Torreya is more closely related to COAST REDWOOD than it is to any pine. And in our discussion this month (including one of the lead academics in redwood research in California) we learned of more similarities between the two. Another of the participants was the person who found and photographed the champion-size Calif torreya that I then inserted into the official wikipedia page of that species. • August 2024 / Jim Thomson and Connie Barlow / Update on torreya planting in Cullowhee, NC CONNIE WRITES: In preparation for submitting a status report last month to USF&WS on our citizen plantings (see directly below), I queried our planters in order to update those who had sent in enough photos and reports in past years for me to have created site-specific pages of their projects. Sadly, one planter (Nelson Stover in Greensboro NC had died), and one other in NC (older than me!) who had reported a year ago of first seed production has not responded to two of us who tried.    As a citizen group, our own plantings are almost always limited to private properties — and thus transfers in ownership have been accruing since our first plantings exactly 2 decades ago in North Carolina. In the case of Jim Thomson who sent updated PHOTOS of his torreyas in Cullowhee NC, the new owners, fortunately, are aware of the plants and will try to preserve them. These photos (LEFT) reveal typical growth form differences between plantings under a full forest canopy vs. plantings on or next to mowed lawn (which can access more direct sun). PHOTOS of all 5 torreyas, plus photos and descriptions from previous years, are found on the Cullowhee, NC webpage. • July 2024/ Connie Barlow/ I submitted a 22-page "comment" to provide info and suggested actions for the Florida Torreya recovery plan now being updated The second and third post below are entries about: (June) announcement that the recovery update begins and (July) a new "3-part framework" that the Fish & Wildlife Service is using this time. ("SSA means "Species Status Assessment"). Comments are being accepted through August 5, but I got mine in early. Access my full COMMENT in PDF. Below right is my cover letter to the 22-page, highly illustrated, document:    I, Connie Barlow, founded the citizen group Torreya Guardians in 2005, and I have been its webmaster and chief networker ever since. We have no formal organization, so I write here as an individual. I draw upon two decades of experience in what we have learned about best practices for assisting the northward migration of an ESA listed endangered tree: Florida Torreya. Learn about Torreya taxifolia Natural History on our website. Torreya Guardians is the first group credited with implementing the long-distance "assisted migration" of a climate-endangered plant. I am a retired science writer, who specialized in evolutionary ecology (4 books). My bio and publications are on a different website. I am also on Researchgate. Because governmental agencies do not like citations that go to regular web format, I converted 26 webpages on the Torreya Guardians website into PDF format that are all downloadable. Because my comment features the actual experiences of our volunteer planters and those among us who have been documenting the old historical groves in North Carolina, 13 of the total PDFs entail the highly illustrated, site-specific pages of our most successful planters (especially those who send me photos and ongoing results). Additionally, I made and referenced in my document the PDFs made from 2 WIKIPEDIA pages: Torreya taxifolia and Torreya Guardians. • July 2024/ Connie Barlow and Jake Wells/ First photo documentation of a successful freeplanting of Torreya seeds in Illinois For the past two years I (Connie) have delayed distributing to volunteer planters the annual fall harvests of Torreya seeds from Cleveland (Parma) OHIO and two homes in central NORTH CAROLINA. Instead, I distribute seeds the following year or even the next. This is because Torreya seeds almost never germinate after a single winter stratifiction. About 3/4 of the viable seeds will germinate after two winters, and the remainder after three. By my stratifying them safely together, this reduces opportunities for rodents to find and dig them up.    PHOTO LEFT: This is the first germination of the 40 seeds that Jake Wells planted in late July of 2023. The seeds came from the 2022 fall harvest in Clinton NC (where we were granted permission to collect beginning in 2013). Jake Wells, who lives near Alpha ILLINOIS, has initiated an experiment. Instead of waiting to see a seedling emerge before caging, he chickenwired each site right after planting the seed. This is very labor intensive! We already know that caging is crucial to prevent browsing by deer, which can devastate young seedlings. But we do not know how much early herbivory is by rabbits or woodchucks. And even if seeds are planted 4 inches deep, we cannot be sure that squirrels, chipmunks, or tunneling voles won't find them. Chickenwire supported by wooden stakes certainly keeps rabbits, woodchucks, and squirrels away. Jake's experiment will teach us whether early caging is worth the effort. JAKE wrote, "I am very proud to be part of this grand experiment. The fact that I have been given the chance to help save a species is a privilege. And now that I have a torreya growing, it is even more special. I am so excited to be the first in Illinois to have a documented torreya growing with photos — and to put Illinois on the map!" (Details are on the new Illinois page.) • July 2024/ Connie Barlow/ New "3-Part Framework" for recovery planning offers Torreya Guardians collaborative possibilities    A google search for how USF&WS recovery planning is done led me to a new webpage. This 3-part framework may finally induce the agency to value what our citizen group accomplishes. No longer will the two participating botanical gardens in Georgia have the power to veto experimentation in "assisted migration" poleward (which is what happened in 2010). This is because "working groups" are a thing of the past. Instead, comments received from everyone during the update process will be considered by agency staff in writing just the basic statutory elements required in a "recovery plan." These include targets for rises in population numbers that will constitute success for downlisting and delisting. Also included will be categories of actions for moving toward success. But a lot of elements that are in the official plans now will be shifted into two flexible and updatable documents. This is where our group can shine. They are: • The SPECIES STATUS REPORT (SSA) for Florida torreya: Here we can offer agency staff documentation of (a) the geographic inventory we completed of Historic Groves of old horticultural plantings, (b) results of our own volunteer torreya plantings (including seed production in Ohio) and (c) our ever-growing sense of best practices for propagating, siting, and nurturing this species in a variety of states and habitats northward of this glacial relict's tiny historical range. • RECOVERY IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES (RIS) will for the first time be authorized for the agency to develop separately with each participating institution. Thus the agency could explore a separate RIS to be carried out by our group. So long as experimentation in assisted migration is included as an action category in the official recovery plan update, the agency will be free to explore this option. Our willingness to engage in supportive actions for Florida torreya without needing any funding is likely to make us very attractive as an RIS collaborator. • June 2024/ Connie Barlow/ Florida Torreya Recovery Plan Update begins — Opportunity for Torreya Guardians to comment We've got until AUGUST 5 to post comments. I alerted the main group of planting volunteers right away. Meanwhile I am trying to have a phone conversation with a relevant staffer to accomplish two things:    (1) Gain assurance that several of us will be invited to partipate officially in the Working Group for Florida Torreya. We are stakeholders no less than the park managers, private landowners, and botanical gardens who are attempting to help this species in its "historical range" in Florida and Geogia. (2) How might our collaboration be most helpful? What specific information and discoveries we have made might be most useful to include in our comments? • June 2024/ Connie Barlow/ "Latent pathogen" discoveries could help Torreya Guardians advocacy    At timecode 01:46:04, a 2-minute section of a long forestry video is where MY QUESTION is read to the guest speaker: "Do you recommend assisted migration, northward, upslope, or onto north-facing slopes?" His response was generally positive. "I don't see anything wrong with it. It's happening already.... In the Sierra Nevada, trees are moving upslope." As the lead forest pathologist in the state, Prof. Matteo Garbelotto had talked about the scale and causes of the shockingly unexpected and sudden tree deaths happening in the San Francisco Bay area — all unquestionably attributed to the recent extremes of heat and drought. These, in turn, empowered native fungi to kill previously healthy trees. HOW CALIFORNIA'S EXPERIENCE COULD HELP FLORIDA TORREYA: Torreya Guardians have long been conducting our own "assisted migration" experiments northward by using seeds produced from horticultural plantings in the Appalachians and northward. However, the two botanical gardens who control the ex situ wild-stock plantings in northern Georgia have stalled in collecting and distributing the prolific annual seed production — out of fear that the newly named Fusarium torreyae (which is present in all tissues, including seeds) might be able to harm other native trees. In his talk, Prof. Matteo Garbelotto (U.C. Berkeley) used the term "latent pathogens". These are native fungal and bacterial "endophytes" that are always present within tree tissues, "possibly beneficial", but then turn lethal when their host trees become climate stressed. In contrast, when the globally known fungal disease Fusarium lateritium that has long been identified with root necrosis and/or stem cankers in Florida Torreya was renamed in 2013 as a new species, Fusarium torreyae, the fear arose that it might not be a native disease (triggered by Holocene warming to kill a left-behind glacial relict). Rather, it might be from another continent, introduced by the horticultural trade mid-20th century, as that is when the massive deaths of torreya trees began. Now consider: "Latent pathogen" is another name for a commensal or mutualistic microbial member of the "plant microbiome" that turns deadly when its host is stressed. This is especially true of the subset of fungal mutualists that normally pass their own descendants forward as part of the SEED MICROBIOME. Scroll down to this entry to learn more about the possibility that Fusarium torreyae may actually be mutualistic with Florida torreya in northward climates:   • December 2023/ Connie Barlow/ Botany papers reveal that Fusarium torreyae is actually a mutualist, only becoming pathogenic when the host plant is stressed. • May 2024 / Buford Pruitt/ Squirrels can be helpful — if one has hundreds of seeds    May 28 email from Buford Pruitt in Brevard NC: "... Fred Bess had also sent me seeds to be scattered in natural habitat, some of which I put 4 to 6 inches deep into the ground and others I merely placed within the leaf litter. Two of those seeds germinated this year and are currently 6+ inches tall (see photo). They came up at the edge of my picnic table area — way too close to the table for me to have placed them there. Their needle-tipped leaves are not needed at picnics! So, I believe squirrels found them in the leaf litter and planted them. I plan to relocate them." Note: A year ago Buford contributed a 3-page analysis of the range of ways in which squirrels provide seed dispersal services in the wild. SEE ALSO: See the DECEMBER 2019 entry by Clint Bancroft on his torreya page: evidence that a squirrel carried and planted a seed some 200 feet distant from the seed pot it had worked its way into! QUESTION: Has anyone tried putting CHILE FLAKES just below the soil surface when covering up a deep-planted seed? • May 2024 / Russell Regnery and Connie Barlow / Unlike Florida Torreya project, Wollemia tree project encourages citizen plantings CONNIE writes: Russ Regnery (Torreya Guardian NC) alerted me to this 2022 paper, "Home gardens contribute to conservation of the critically endangered Wollemi Pine: Evaluation of a botanic garden-led horticultural release programme", by Catherine Offord and Heidi Zimmer, published in Plants, People, Planet.    At least one Torreya Guardian (Wisconsin Mike Heim, PHOTO LEFT) participates in the global effort to ensure geographic distribution of a relict genus of conifer (Wollemia) whose last native hold is a cool, deep canyon in eastern Australia. In that project, citizens are welcomed — and planting in a vast variety of geographies and habitats is regarded as useful for discerning the full range of climate and habitats in which this narrow endemic could be translocated to perhaps thrive and disperse on its own again. In sad contrast, we citizens assisting the northward migration of one of America's own glacial relict trees (Florida torreya) have been criticized by some conservation biologists (but not forestry professionals), and subjected to hostile statements by the agency and botanical gardens officially in charge. Initially, we were criticized for not waiting for professionals to study whether this species could (a) survive northward, and (b) would not become "invasive" by doing too well in northward habitats. Well, the professional studies never happened. Instead, we used basic natural history skills to document on our own the survival and lack of invasiveness in existing northward horticultural plantings more than a half-century old. In the late 2010s a new charge was launched against us: that we might inadvertently be spreading northward an allegedly exotic fungal disease by moving torreya plants (and even just their seeds) north. Even though professional botanists are now recognizing that fungal species routinely found within the seeds of a host plant are a strong sign of mutualism (becoming pathogenic only when the host is too stressed to produce seeds), the botanical gardens are still letting their ex situ seed production in northern Georgia go to waste. Accordingly, they criticized our group for continuing our own distribution of horticulturally grown seeds and thus our northward planting projects. At least one professional is still speaking of Fusarium torreyae as an exotic fungal disease and as a danger to other tree species in the eastern USA — even though the scientific papers did not document an exotic source. As well, there are no peer-reviewed published papers documenting dangers to other tree species. Inoculations of potted plants of other species by a graduate student in laboratory settings in Florida cannot determine susceptibility of those same tree species when supported by climate and mutualists of their own natural ecological settings in the Appalachian Mountains. • April 2024 / Connie Barlow / Superb forest slope of new torreya planter in Illinois After 1 winter stratification here in the ground in Michigan, I sent seeds from Fred Bess's 2023 harvest (Cleveland, Ohio) to 5 new torreya planters, including our first planter ever in NEW JERSEY. Photos above are where our new planter in Peoria ILLINOIS will be putting his torreya, following germination and growth into seedlings after maintaining the seeds safely for a second winter stratification. The steepness of the slope, with lots of Christmas ferns under a deciduous canopy, look like ideal habitat. Caging against deer browsing will be put in place if necessary. • March 2024 / Mike Heim and Connie Barlow / Torreya survives a crazy winter in northern-most planting    Back in February, Mike Heim contributed photos of 5 of his torreya seedlings during a winter of relatively little snow in Wisconsin. A springlike week in February is the photo left. Snow arrived again in March (right). Mike reported that the coldest temperature this winter was -16F (not bad for northern Wisconsin!). Fortunately, the seedlings were covered in snow then. He reported "-6F is the coldest they've been exposed to." You'll see lots more photos on Mike's Wisconsin Torreya page. Now, compare the Wisconsin Torreya to a Torreya Guardians planting in the panhandle of Florida below. That's quite a climate span for a species to cope with! Such experiments are extremely useful in this time of rapid climate change. • March 2024 / Chris Larson / Photo of seedling at Shoal Sanctuary in the Florida panhandle    MARCH 20, 2024: Chris Larson sent this photo of one of the remaining Florida Torreya seedlings, 9 years after the seeds were "freeplanted" directly into the forest. Notice the creek in the background. The topographically rich and forested land in this region of northern Florida contains the same kinds of "steephead ravines", with small creeks at their bottoms, that provides crucial habitat in the original relictual range eastward in the panhandle. IMPORTANT: Notice the absence of deer herbivory on this perfect seedling. (The seedlings have never been "caged".) Hunting is a normal activity in this very rural part of Florida — in contrast to prohibition of hunting in Torreya State Park, where herbivory has been severe. • March 2024 / Connie Barlow / Estella Leopold dies at age 97 (she told Torreya Guardians about a Miocene Torreya fossil in Washington state) New York Times posted an obituary of Estella Leopold (last surviving offspring of Aldo Leopold) on March 5. She was 97. I was scheduled to meet her in Seattle in 2017, while I was volunteering there for the "Valve Turners", but she had to go to the hospital for a lung condition, so that never happened. Earlier she and I had engaged in e-correspondence about Torreya taxifolia and her team's finding a Miocene torreya fossil in Washington state. I am grateful that I kept and posted the Leopold-and-Barlow correspondence. • March 2024 / Connie Barlow / Three Torreya Guardians report germination after 3 winters (1) End of February 2024, Mike Heim of Hayward WI sent me photos of the 5 torreya seedlings that had emerged Summer of 2023 from NC seeds that Mike had planted directly into his deer exclosure right after the Fall harvest, November 2020. Thus, it took 3 winters in the ground before those seeds produced seedlings. (2) Early March 2024, Connie Barlow in Ypsilanti MI decided to check on how the NC seeds from the 2021 harvest were doing, after spending a third winter stratifying. She was shocked and delighted that of the 45 seeds that had not germinated (as many do) after their second winter stratification 34 had already germinated by early March after their third winter. Indeed, the roots had already lengthened so much (see photo left above) that they could easily break during shipment or even during careful planting here in Michigan. Statistics: 45 total seeds, of which 34 had germinated, 4 were dark gray (no longer healthy brown) and upon dissection were confirmed dead, 1 had a white wormy insect larva emerging from its round depression near the tip, 2 had the triple crack that precedes germination, and the remaining 4 had the customary thin slit at the tip that precedes the triple crack. The experiment now continues with the remaining 6 healthy brown seeds. (3) Mid December 2023, Paul Camire of Capac MI was surprised that he still had a neglected bag of November 2021 harvested NC seeds in his refrigerator. So he pulled out the bag and put it in his basement. Connie's early March report that her third-winter stratified seeds had already germinated prompted Paul to check his bag of 2021 seeds. He found that two had just started to germinate (photo above right). • December 2023/ Connie Barlow/ Botany papers reveal that Fusarium torreyae is actually a mutualist, only becoming pathogenic when the host plant is stressed. Using Google Scholar, and also aided by the PLANT MICROBIOME page on wikipedia, I encountered a raft of recent botany papers concluding that fungal propagules regularly found in seeds entail the SEED MICROBIOME. Even beneficial fungal partners, however, may express pathogenically if a plant host becomes too stressed to produce seeds. IMPLICATIONS AND QUESTIONS: Might this explain why Fusarium torreyae had first been detected in stem cankers within the historical range, yet subsequent observations had also detected it in all seeds produced in northern Georgia? Might the professionals in charge of torreya seed policy not be aware of these recent papers — which entail a marked paradigm shift? As well, is there some way that Torreya Guardians could ensure that these papers would be considered in the next 5-year plan update, due in 2025? Toward fostering professional and public awareness of technical papers that brought about this paradigm shift, I posted a lengthy new webpage that links and excerpts the main papers. I use a chronological framework that also lists and excerpts previous scholarship (beginning in 1967) exploring possible causes for the demise of Florida torreya within its historical range. I also produced a video introduction to the paradigm shift and the history of scholarship pertaining to Florida torreya: • Published Documents on Endangerment Causes of Torreya taxifolia in Florida      (Table of contents for this lengthy new webpage is below.) • VIDEO on the paradigm shift      (Title: "Assisted Migration of Climate-Endangered Plants - Torreya Guardians lead the way") • December 2023 / Daein Ballard / NEW HAMPSHIRE discoveries on full-sun torreyas SUMMARY (by Barlow) of the New Hampshire report: Three of the 6 photos Daein Ballard sent us in December are shown above. Significant findings include (1) At least in full-sun sites, torreyas as far north as southern New Hampsire will have 2 growth spurts annually — just like we have documented in full-sun Tennessee. (2) The full-sun torreya growth form is less yew-like than in shady habitat (see the lower portion of the middle photo above). Daein reports that the full-sun leaf pattern deters deer. This is likely because the deer cannot avoid getting poked by the very sharp needle tips when it tries to bite off the end of a lateral. See how the full-sun growth form is very similar to that already demonstrated by Fred Bess in Ohio. (Go to the Cleveland-Ohio page and scroll down to the October 2018 photos.) • November 2023/ Connie Barlow/ New VIDEO reviews history of search for Torreya's causes of endangerment — and implications of the new papers on PLANT and SEED MICROBIOMES    This 70-minute VIDEO begins with a celebration of the 1,000+ seeds our grower in Ohio produced autumn 2023. The rest of the video is a presentation by the group's founder, Connie Barlow, of the long and shifting history of scientific speculation and (sometimes faulty) assumptions about the ultimate cause(s) of this ancient conifer's sudden demise in its tiny historical range in Florida. A new webpage Connie created, "Published Documents on Endangerment Causes of Torreya taxifolia in Florida", is the basis for this educational video. BACKGROUND: Motivated by the July 2023 adoption of a new regulation permitting the agency in charge of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to expand recovery efforts beyond the "historical range" — especially if climate change had already damaged prospects there — Connie began a scholarly search of new papers that might offer guidance for Florida Torreya. What she found was a "paradigm shift" (beginning around 2016) that offered new and compelling scientific reasons for the ESA implementers to follow the lead of this citizen group in "assisted migration" poleward as a way to help this tree regain its ability to fight native diseases. Central to this new understanding is the discovery that all plant tissues — including seeds — harbor beneficial fungal and bacterial partners: what is now called the PLANT MICROBIOME and the SEED MICROBIOME. • November 2023/ Connie Barlow/ USDA new map of plant hardiness zones shows regional warming in our northward Torreya plantings • November 2023/ Connie Barlow/ Seed harvest by Torreya Guardians at two sites in central NC Visit the Cinton and Mt Olive NC page for 2023 photos during collection, added to the chronological entries that began October 2013. • November 2023/ Fred Bess/ Parma OHIO, photos of final harvest from 3 female stems     ABOVE: Visit the Parma, OHIO (suburb of Cleveland) torreya page for the full history, from planting to harvesting seeds.   Fred delivered 1,085 seeds to Connie Barlow in Ypsilanti, Michigan. LEFT: Connie noticed a clear, thin "cap" on all seeds — and thus an experiment: For winter stratification outdoors, she put 400 seeds with the cap removed into one pit, and 400 with just the flesh removed into another pit. HYPOTHESIS: Perhaps when this ancient genus was dispersed by large herbivorous reptiles who swallowed the seeds whole for the food value of just the fleshy aril. Passage through the system may have removed this clear, thin cap that covers just the pointy, germination tip of the seed. Is our own failure to remove this cap the reason why almost no seeds germinate after just one winter? (Most germinate after 2 winter stratifications.) Thus, will the 400 seeds with caps removed show more first-winter germinations than the 400 seeds with intact caps? • November 2023/ Mike Heim / Torreya planter in Wisconsin obtains LAND CONSERVATION easement   Mike Heim writes, "Another 58 acres protected forever!" Access the news article on the CONSERVATION EASEMENT DESIGNATION. SIGNIFICANCE: This is the first time that a torreya planter on private land has ensured that protection of their plantings will continue after their own death or sale of the property. • Visit Mike Heim's TORREYA IN HAYWARD WISCONSIN page. • October 2023/ Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians reported in New York Times and Sierra Magazine as the first assisted migration project — now redwoods have taken the lead Access links and lengthy excerpts of New York Times and Sierra Magazine See if this "share" link gets you past the paywall: NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE "Redwoods"    COAST REDWOOD is the new leader in assisted migration — and thank goodness! Finally, academics and journalists have lost any truthful grounding for nitpicking the efforts of Torreya Guardians, as citizens, working on our own to achieve recovery of the nearly-extinct-in-historic-range FLORIDA TORREYA. Additional good news is that the massive project moving REDWOOD seeds from California to the Seattle WA area was originated by CITIZENS in 2016, with an NGO formed to lead the expanding project only this year. Over the past four years, I used my personal experience with redwoods and reading relevant scientific papers to help with their laying out of best practices for propagation and siting where to plant. See here and here. TORREYA GUARDIANS also helped with applying our own experience as to whether rooted branchlets can ever be nurtured into tree form. In the case of our slow-growing subcanopy tree, the answer is no. In the case of the evolved canopy capacity and basal resprouting ability of Coast Redwood, the answer is yes. Learn more about the lengthy and photo-rich webpage I constructed: "Growth Capacities of Coast Redwood". TORREYA GUARDIANS WEST formed in 2022 in order to begin assisted migration of the California species of the genus: Torreya californica. Unburdened by any endangered species listing, and free of academic and institutional attempts to block citizen actions, Torreya seeds from the 2022 harvest in California went to a citizen in Vancouver, British Columbia last year. This year's harvest (already finished) will include seed shipment to a botanical garden also in that part of CANADA. The citizen redwood group in Seattle will also be able to help California torreya find additional homes in the Pacific Northwest in the years ahead. IMPLICATIONS FOR ESA MANAGEMENT OF FLORIDA TORREYA: From what I can discern, there is only one remaining scientific basis for the two botanical gardens in Georgia to continue their prohibition of assisted migration of Florida torreya. These two institutions are empowered by the Endangered Species Act to exercise total control over the management of the two ex situ plantings of diverse, wild genetics of Florida Torreya in northern-most Georgia. From what we can discern, ever since 2016 tens of thousands of seeds produced in those orchards have not only been uncollected and unutilized but also not even documented as to yearly production.     The "one remaining scientific basis" for the Georgia botanical gardens continuing to block wild-genetic seed distribution poleward has recently been falsified by discovery of, what is now called a PLANT MICROBIOME, which is pervasive in all the tissues of all plants studied thus far. Even more important is that, when the botanical gardens documented the genetics of a Fusarium fungal species in all torreya seeds sampled, their decision to halt seed distribution northward would turn out to be the polar opposite of what the next paradigm shift would signify, beginning in 2018. That is, papers published in botany and pathology journals confirmed that all plant seeds contain their own SEED MICROBIOME of fungal and bacterial mutualists — crucial for successful germination and root development.     Thus the finding of Fusarium torreyae within torreya seeds should have been a green light for moving ahead with assisted migration, not a full-stop. Because I myself was unaware of the PLANT & SEED MICROBIOME discoveries until this summer, I do not fault overworked botanical staff and academics for being unaware of that too. So the question becomes: Which scientist or journalist will bring this SEED MICROBIOME PARADIGM SHIFT to light, such that institutional management policies will have to shift in order to still be regarded as scientifically grounded? • October 2023/ Fred Bess/ Parma, OHIO (a suburb of Cleveland) has another big torreya seed harvest   Fred Bess (Cleveland, OH) does it again! He writes in part, "I spent the last hour 'donating blood' while picking Torreya arils/seeds. Dang, those needles are sharp! The aril flesh has finally started to split. That is my cue to collect them.     I picked only from the big female tree and only the mid-section. I still must pick the top third and bottom portion. You can see I've gotten quite the crop. A two-and-a-half-gallon bucket full to the top, and I may be able to pick yet another bucket full. I want to heal for a day or two before I pick more. I have yet to pick from the other two females. And, as always, I keep the seeds separated to keep the genetics apart...." • October 2023 / Clint Bancroft / A torreya grown from seed emerges with a triple stem   CLINT BANCROFT: "Torreya as trinity! Today as I was removing seedlings from their group container to put into individual one-gallon pots, I discovered that one had emerged from a single seed — but had three trunks! Never before has a seed sprouted with more than a single trunk. (The group of seedlings in the container all sprouted from seeds harvested Fall 2021 at Mt. Olive, North Carolina.)" • September 2023/ Connie Barlow / Wikipedia page on Torreya Guardians has new section on how our group is influencing academic philosophers    In my retirement, I've had more time to devote to volunteer activities beyond maintaining this webpage for Torreya Guardians. Notably, I have become an experienced wikipedia editor. My first effort in 2021 was co-creating a new page with a Canadian: "Assisted migration of forests in North America". Next, I massively updated and extended the Torreya taxifolia wikipedia page. I did not create the original Torreya Guardians wikipedia page. But I was able to make some contributions of basic facts (although not all that I had hoped for!) when it was created. Now I have learned enough about wikipedia standards — especially for topics that include controversies, which our page certainly does — that I managed to craft a new section that passed the test. I did that by selecting two excerpts: one that favored our work and the other that did not. So there is balance. The new section is "Reception within the Bioethics profession". As per my custom as a former science writer, I looked for scholarly papers by academic bioethicists that mentioned how our group was leading "assisted migration" in this time of rapid climate change. Check it out! • September 2023/ Clint Bancroft/ Basal sprout appears on precious seedling sourced from 2018 seeds donated by Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve in Louisiana   ABOVE LEFT: Clint Bancroft receives several torreya seeds produced by the tallest Florida torreya at the Caroline Dormon Nature Preserve in Louisiana, November 2018. (The tree is immediately behind Clint.) ABOVE RIGHT: Clint took this photo nearly five years later (September 2023) of the basal sprout emerging from a young torreya growing from one of those seeds. (It takes 2 winter stratifications before torreya seeds will germinate.) Clint Bancroft is a Torreya Guardian who aims to plant the most genetically diverse population of seedlings in a wild forest setting on his property along Greasy Creek, in the Ocoee watershed of southeastern Tennessee. CLINT WROTE: "I have good news from Greasy Creek. As you know, there was only one seed from the 5 we were gifted from the Dormon torreya collection in Louisiana (November 2018 site visit). I had the good fortune, and awesome responsibility, of being the holder of that single seedling. It is doing well, still in its pot behind an impassable fence wire barrier. This year the tree has put up a basal sprout. I plan to leave it on the parent until next fall and then collect it for rooting. My sense is that it is yet too small for collection this year. This, being the rarest among our collection from various seed sources, will be dealt with very cautiously." • September 2023/ Connie Barlow / 2020 Report shows cumulative government funds spent on endangered species management of Torreya taxifolia The 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act is December 2023. Because there is a lot of political controversy about possibly amending the act as well as the usual funding debates, I am reading quite a few relevant news reports. One linked to a tabulation of cumulative government spending for each species. The image below is just a piece of Table 2, which entails (in order of expenditures from highest to lowest) the funding rank of 1,599 of the 1,821 domestic species (and subspecies) listed as endangered (E) or threatened (T) as of 2020. Florida torreya was the third highest-funded plant. A saltwater plant and an orchid native to springs in five western states were the only plants (plants entail the majority of listed species) that received more funding, since aggregate accounting began in 1990. Also relevant to our group is a table from a 2022 paper, "Data sharing for conservation: A standardized checklist of US native tree species and threat assessments to prioritize and coordinate action". Below you will see my adaptation of the table, which singled out something I have never before been able to discern myself from within the vast list of endangered species. This is the subset of TREE species on the endangered species list. Besides our own focal tree, only three others have genus names that are recognizable to me as trees: Asimina (pawpaw), Betula (birch), and Cercocarpus. • September 2023/ Connie Barlow / Citizen planters helping Australia's Wollemia tree validate our own group's effort helping Florida Torreya Thanks to Canadian Lucas Machias, I learned of a new research paper (and a news article about it) reporting how citizen science is helping to conserve the "living fossil" Wollemia tree — both within and outside of its tiny relict range (at the bottom of a deep canyon, to keep cool) in eastern Australia.    Consider first that Wollemia's discovery in 1994 is what knocked Florida torreya off its pedestal as the "most endangered conifer in the world." Thanks to the unusual decision to have commercial nurseries help in distributing rooted cuttings of Wollemia to home gardeners in some 31 nations around the world, scientists have been able to learn a lot about where and how this precious species can grow — without having to spend their own time (and a lot of funding) to do so in the usual way that "endangered species" are managed. Indeed, citizens were recruited to care for Wollemia cuttings, and commercial nurseries made distribution part of their normal business. What a contrast to how our own citizen effort has been ignored (and spoken against) by the professionals in charge! Torreya planter, Fred Bess, in Cleveland Ohio has participated in the Wollemia home effort (using his greenhouse) and so has our Wisconsin planter, Mike Heim, who keeps his Wollemia potted for moving indoors during the winter. See my excerpting of the 2023 research paper on our Historic Groves page. I also added a new conservation subsection on this topic to the WOLLEMIA WIKIPEDIA page. • August 2023/ Mike Heim and Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians contribute to northward American Chestnut documentation BELOW LEFT is a 2023 photo by Mike Heim of one of his mature 1980 plantings of (pure) American Chestnut on his forested property in northern Wisconsin. He wrote, "Here is a photo of my largest blight-resistent pure American chestnut. I had bought them from a nursery in MI in 1980. It developed blight cankers early on, healed over them, and hasn't had a problem since." Notice, for scale, the man standing at the tree's base.    LEFT is a MAP from a 2022 paper, "Beyond blight: Phytophthora root rot under climate change limits populations of reintroduced American chestnut", by Eric J. Gustafson et al., in Ecosphere. Notice how far north Mike Heim's WI property is — and thus how far north American Chestnuts can already thrive. Access more, full-scale photos of Heim's American Chestnuts. Another Torreya planter, Paul Camire in southern Michigan, is newly experimenting with pure American Chestnuts. Go to timecode 13:17 of the VIDEO of Torreya Guardians posted immediately below to see Paul's chestnut planting. SIGNIFICANCE: Because Historic Groves documentation by Torreya Guardians far north of the tiny historical range of Torreya taxifolia in n. Florida has been recognized by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as an important contribution of ours, citizens and professionals involved with American Chestnut restoration should also be aware of and document just how far north of "historical range" this cherished native canopy tree can survive (even thrive) today. • August 2023/ Paul Camire and Connie Barlow / New VIDEO of Torreya thriving in MICHIGAN PAUL CAMIRE, whose family farm and forest is in the "thumb" of southern Michigan, led CONNIE BARLOW on a tour of his Florida torreya plantings August 13, 2023. Despite setbacks by herbivory, Paul's 45-acre deciduous forest is proving to be good habitat for this endangered and slow-growing subcanopy conifer. Another 30 young ones still in pots outdoors at his home will join the forest plantings in the years to come.    This 34-minute VIDEO delves into the details of best forest planting practices. Paul's experience will encourage other planters to (a) build strong cages to protect torreya where DEER are over-abundant and (b) don't give up when herbivory happens. Torreya will recover! This ancient species may be slow, but it is almost indestructible once it gets a roothold. Crucially, too: There is no evidence of winter kill or disease problems. And at timecode 10:52 you will hear Connie's surprise when Paul shows his vibrant Florida yew — another glacial relict left stranded amidst the wild torreya in the panhandle of Florida.   Watch on youtube: "Michigan welcomes endangered trees from Florida (2023)".   Visit the Capac Michigan torreya webpage. • August 2023/ Connie Barlow / 48 papers linked and excerpted on the history of research on why Florida torreya is endangered    Until this month I was unaware that in 2015 agricultural research pathologists initiated a PARADIGM SHIFT in how they regard fungal endophytes (including Fusarium species). Henceforth, fungal endophytes discovered in plants are first evaluated as potential mutualists with their hosts: "seeds contain mainly plant-beneficial microorganisms" (Abdelfattah et al. 2022) Learn more in this new list of 48 scientific papers, with excerpts. Since 2003, I have been analyzing published papers that offer and/or test hypotheses on WHY FLORIDA TORREYA suddenly succumbed to disease(s) in its tiny native range in the 1950s, and continuing today. "Environmental stress" that provoked disease expression by weakened plants was tested in the 1990s. However, quantitative historical data (especially on temperature changes in the ravine habitat) were not adequate for the scientists to point to a specific environmental shift as the likely ultimate cause of the multiple diseases injuring the species.      In the early 2010s, new morphological standards for parsing the globally ranging FUSARIUM genus of fungi led to University of Florida researchers distinguishing and naming a NEW SPECIES from fungal isolates that previously had been called Fusarium lateritium. The new species was named Fusarium torreyae, and this gave rise to speculations that the disease was exotic and had arrived on this continent in sync with the sudden outburst of stem cankers in Florida torreya. Thenceforth, the risk of a possibly exotic pathogen spreading northward supplied new reasons for botanical garden staff to maintain hostility to "assisted migration" projects, such as those underway by Torreya Guardians.      Within the past half-dozen years, an additional risk factor put a virtual end to harvesting and distribution of tens of thousands of torreya seeds produced annually in the two ex situ orchards in n. Georgia that are "safeguarding" the wild genetics. That new risk factor derives from the finding that Fusarium torreyae was not only in "all tissues" of Florida torreya — but even in its SEEDS. This finding, however, actually offers hope for the fears to subside — but only if the botanical staff and other professionals familiarize themselves with the new (post-2014) scientific papers, such as my own compilation of 48 SCIENTIFIC PAPERS, which includes the most recent papers documenting that FUNGAL ENDOPHYTES CAN BE BENEFICIAL, especially when inside SEEDS . • July 2023/ Connie Barlow / Discovery: It took 2.5 months for seedlings to emerge after I free-planted GERMINATED seeds in a forest site Having retired to my home state of southern Michigan, I have been frustrated by the overabundance of deer that destroy the understory in just about every forested site I have explored. Folks who began planting torreyas in Michigan a half-dozen or more years ago find that winter-hungry deer will sometimes push down all but the sturdiest cages.    So in April 2023 I tried something new. I selected massively tangled treefall sites for planting already germinated torreya seeds. These were from the 2021 harvest in Clinton, NC. None germinated after one winter stratifiction, but 39% germinated after two. After planting mid April, it took 2.5 months for any of the already germinated seeds to show any above-ground growth. Instead, torreya's big seed invests in a long and well furnished TAPROOT, which is crucial for surviving summer droughts. At the 3-month point, 6 of the 10 seeds had produced seedlings, 2 of which soon were nibbled down to stubs. These will regrow new leaders from the still-green bud scales that remain. ABOVE: Photos show the first two seedlings (June 30 and July 5 photos), next to context photos of the treefall tangles where I chose to plant seeds in April. (I used round rocks to mark each planting.) • July 2023/ Fred Bess / Seeds galore forming in Parma, OHIO (a suburb of Cleveland) "I was out doing yard work and noted that the big female in the front yard is absolutely loaded with arils/seeds." For the history of Fred's Torreya plantings, go to the Cleveland, Ohio page on this website. Editor's note: While these torreya seeds are full size and fully rounded in shape, ripening continues for another 3 months. Picking the seeds before the fleshy coating peels off easily (without sticking to the seed) dooms the seed to death. Usually, the seed flesh turns yellowish or orange (sometimes with purple patches) when fully ripe. Scroll down to November 2022 and see the color of Fred's plucked seeds from his 2022 harvest. • July 2023/ Connie Barlow / Federal government adopts new rule to authorize assisted migration for "experimental populations" of endangered species In June 2022 the government proposed to modify the ESA regulation (not the statute) so as to no longer require "experimental populations" to be placed within "historical range". I filed a comment (as a citizen) supporting that change, which you can access by scrolling down this webpage or accessing directly my August 2022 entry. At the same time I went into the Wikipedia page: "Endangered Species Act of 1973" and created a new section titled "Climate adaptation".   This month, the government finalized the change, so I added this para (with references) to the wikipedia page: "The U.S. Department of Interior on June 30, 2023, announced its decision to modify the section 10(j) "experimental populations" rule generally as proposed a year earlier. The press release summarized the reason for the change as, 'At the time the original 10(j) regulations were established, the potential impact of climate change on species and their habitats was not fully realized, yet in the decades since have become even more dramatic. These revisions will help prevent extinctions and support the recovery of imperiled species by allowing the Service and our partners to implement proactive, conservation-based species introductions to reduce the impacts of climate change and other threats such as invasive species.' The rulemaking action includes a section summarizing 25 topics entailed in comments submitted in 2022, along with the agency's official response to each." This is a hugely significant shift in federal policy that would seem to finally allow (perhaps even motivate?) the agency staff in USF&WS to officially authorize "assisted migration" poleward of Florida Torreya, as we Torreya Guardians have been doing since 2005 — thanks to an "exception" (just for plants) in the statute itself that enables citizens to plant horticulturally produced seeds outside of "historical range." I predict, however, that the agency will not act — unless I (and others?) once again petition the government to utilize this new tool or at least issue a written decision as to why it will not.      And, yes, it is possible for a citizen (without any legal help, nor costs) to submit a formal petition — as I did September 2019 when I petitioned to "downlist" Florida torreya from endangered to "threatened", based on the accomplishments of Torreya Guardians. Access directly my September 2019 comment on this page where I link to MY DOWNLIST PETITION; and then the October 2021 comment where I posted access to the agency's decision NOT TO DOWNLIST. Alas, the agency is probably not legally required to respond with any depth to a petition merely to shift how it implements its current recovery plan. The latest recovery plan update occurred in 2020, and the interval between such updates appears to be about 10 years. Nonetheless, the agency will have to respond at least in a sentence or two as to when they would consider applying the new regulation to Florida Torreya.      For a summary of the problematic episodes that Torreya Guardians have faced in the official resistance to "assisted migration" poleward of this "glacial relict" species from its peak glacial refuge in Florida, access the "Case Study of Agency and Institutional Failures" page on this website. • June 2023/ Eric Hongisto / Huge California Torreyas documented north of San Francisco Editor's note: In the past several years, three Californians have been contributing photos of Florida Torreya's giant cousin that is native to the Coast Range north of Santa Cruz, CA. The four below by Eric Hongisto are now on the Samuel P. Taylor State Park torreya page. Find more via our California Torreya main page. (And notice how massive trees often form from uniting basal regrowth stems — thus indicating much older root stock below, possibly thousands of years old.) • June 2023/ Court Lewis / My two tallest torreyas now 6 feet tall (Unicoi, TN)    COURT LEWIS reports June 2023: "Here is a photo of the two biggest specimens I have. They're both about 6 feet tall, although it's hard to tell that since they're surrounded by grass that I've let grow too high. I only have a total of 5 survivors out of 34 planted 6-7 years ago. The one that grew out of a free-planting in the soil is the third largest (not pictured here). It's about 4 1/2 ft tall. Two others are smaller: 1-2 feet. ... All of mine that have thrived are on sloping ground." See all his photos and reports at Unicoi TN torreya page. • June 2023/ Fred Bess and Connie Barlow / Lack of peer-reviewed science prolongs Fusarium fears within Torreya Keepers group Editor's note: The lack of peer-reviewed scientific discernment is still evident in the disease pathology stance blocking support for seed distribution — even by the institutions administering the official recovery plan for this endangered species. When Fred Bess (who planted the farthest north, Cleveland, set of seed-producing torreyas) heard of a Facebook debate on this topic, he stepped in to present an alternative view. Fred contributed 6 points, of which 3 are excerpted here:    EXCERPTS from Fred Bess's comment in a Facebook thread: ... 3. I know from personal experience that T. taxifolia is winter hardy to (at least) -17F (-27C) here in my own yard and they are fully exposed to the weather and salt spray from the 5 lane road I live on. This seems good evidence that the species was not originally a southern tree. If it were, why would it have the need to be that cold tolerant? More likely as many other southern US species it had to move south during the Ice age, but was unable to move back north, likely because its seed dispersers had gone extinct.      4. Is there any data on Fusarium hardiness? Not every fungus can survive severe cold, especially if it is living within plant tissues that are completely exposed to those sub zero temperatures. Have any studies been done on this?      5. I have an issue with the Fusarium testing on other species. I've seen the photos of completely dead Pinus and other genera in the lab. Just because a plant is killed in the lab does not mean it would be an issue in a natural habitat where there are other factors. Exposing any living organism to a possibly deadly pathogen is likely to end as those experiments did. I suspect those plants were grown in the lab as well and did not have the benefit of mycorrhizal associations that could have helped the trees deal with a fusarium infection.... Editor's note: Fred's full comment is available on his Ohio Torreya page, as the May 2023 entry within the Endangerment (causes of) webpage, and within the long facebook discussion thread. Reading this thread motivated webmaster, Connie Barlow, to send an email to the Fusarium expert in USDA, plus a climate-range-shift specialist there she has communicated with in past years. Connie wrote, in part: REQUEST: Could a group of USDA scientists evaluate and publish what is known and unknown about the science concerning: (a) native v. non-native origin of the newly identified Fusarium torreyae; (b) whether "glacial relict" history accounts for the small "historical native" range; (c) possibilities for successful reintroduction of Torreya into Florida, absent genetic engineering; (d) whether unpublished lab experiments in Florida that injected the fusarium into clippings or potted specimens of spruce, fir, and pine species native to high altitudes of the southern Appalachian mountains offer reliable evidence for halting seed distribution from the ex situ groves and perhaps also from mature horticultural plantings in North Carolina and Ohio; (e) scientifically credible next steps for producing peer-reviewable and thus publishable results on the actual disease risks of continuing Torreya seed distribution northward of Florida and Georgia. • May 2023/ Jeff Morris / Photos of his tallest Torreya trees in Spencer, NC    The foreground tree in each photo is a Torreya taxifolia. The tallest (left) is 14 feet in height, and it bore fruit in 2022. The foreground tree in right photo is about 9 feet tall and is 4 or 5 years younger. More photos and commentary at the Spencer, NC Torreya page, which is in central North Carolina, 40 miles northeast of Charlotte, 700 foot elevation. • May 2023/ Lamar Marshall / First year of seed production near Franklin, NC    Beginning with seeds donated from the 2013 generation of seeds, Lamar Marshall reports, "I have six surviving Torreyas, a few of which are producing seeds for the first time." More photos and commentary at the Cowee Valley, NC Torreya page, which is 8 miles north of Franklin on a south-facing slope at 2,200 foot elevation. Maintained as a full-sun site by lawn-mowing. • May 2023/ Connie Barlow / USGS surveys USF&WS staff on views about "assisted migration" of endangered species. Conclusion: staff are cautious. SCROLL DOWN first to a JUNE 2022 entry on a proposed USF&WS regulation authorizing "assisted migration" by removing "historical range" as the sole locus for endangered species recovery. THEN RETURN HERE: This 22-page government document is a superb introduction to the concept and controversy about using assisted migration as a climate adaptation tool for endangered species.   In addition to the usual statement of risks of "invasion in recipient ecosystems", disease spread, and project failures resulting in wasted government money, there were several new risks, controversies, or complexities that I was unaware of — either because they pertain mostly to animals or to the complexities of bureaucracies. RISKS pertaining only to ANIMALS: (a) suffering or death during capture and transport, (b) loss of genetic diversity from the source population, (c) walking, flying, or swimming away from their intended "recipient ecosystem", and (d) requiring a lot of money to prepare, do, and monitor. RISKS pertaining only to BUREAUCRACIES (not actions freely undertaken by citizens, such as Torreya Guardians): (a) INADEQUATE FUNDING for staff and/or NGOs to engage in all steps from planning to soliciting comments and then all aspects of carrying out the project. (b) INSECURE FUNDING to ensure monitoring and adjustments over many years. (c) LITIGATION by public either at source or recipient site. TOPICS LACKING IN THIS GOVERNMENT REPORT: 1. PLANTS were not specified as being less risky and costly than animals. 2. No mention that NORTHWARD PLANTINGS IN PLACE at botanical gardens, urban streets/parks, and private residences can be evaluated as free, long-term experiments for assessing actual risks of project failure or harm to recipient ecosystems (such as we have done for Torreya in our "Historic Groves" webpage). 3. No distinction in historic consequences/risks of MOVING SPECIES WITHIN THE USA V. FROM ANOTHER CONTINENT. 4. Despite use of the term "paleontological" twice, there was no consideration that forestry scientists in America are well aware of GLACIAL-INTERGLACIAL MIGRATIONS OF TREES SPECIES regularly forming "novel ecological communities" during the transition times. BARLOW'S CONCLUSIONS: 1. Overall I gained additional compassion for USF&WS agency staff who are dedicated to the prospect of helping endangered species fully recover. Yet the bureaucracy they work within necessarily poses hurdles, complexities, inertia, shifting political priorities, insecure long-term funding, and endless oppositional public constituencies and lawsuits such that stepping out boldly on assisted migration will continue to be an unwise choice — no matter how good the "decision frameworks" may become. 2. The only climate-motivated "assisted migration" that will occur for endangered species will be those undertaken by CITIZENS WHO USE THE EXISTING "EXCEPTION" FOR PLANTS in the Endangered Species Act of 1973. The USF&WS will not do it. Overall, then, the best way to assist plants who could benefit from assisted migration is to cease attempting to list them as threatened or endangered. NGOs and citizens should simply move plants on their own, of course using the best science for doing so wisely.    • Access Barlow's marked-up copy of the 22-page government document. • April 2023/ Connie Barlow / 10 germinated seeds from 2021 Torreya harvest (after 2 winter stratifications) planted within 3 deer-proof treefalls After two winter stratifications in Michigan, 30 of 78 torreya seeds harvested in autumn 2021 in North Carolina had germinated. (None had germinated the previous spring, after only 1 winter stratification.)    Contrary to her usual practice of avoiding planting sites where deer are overpopulated, Connie planted the first 10 germinated seeds into such a forest — because she found three treefalls of sufficient size and branch density to serve as natural exclosures against deer. LEFT: Connie at the third treefall site in the forest alongside the cemetery in Ypsilanti, MI. Here she planted 4 germinated seeds, at least 6 feet apart, along the distance of the biggest fallen tree. The curving stalks of the invasive subcanopy dominant, Amur honeysuckle, form a helpful mesh for excluding deer. More photos and commentary at the Ypsilanti, Michigan Torreya page. • April 2023/ Connie Barlow / Seed germination results after two winter stratifications After a second winter stratifying in Michigan 78 torreya seeds (from the 2021 seed harvest in North Carolina), Connie photographed and inventoried the results.    • After 2 winter stratifications 39% of the total 78 seeds had newly germinated. • Whether or not a seed shows a thin slit on its germinating point makes no difference in next spring germination. • Any seed with a trifold crack (wider than a slit) at the germinating point will germinate the next spring. • Any seed with punky (weak) regions on its seed coat are just as likely to germinate as seeds with perfect coats. • None of the 9 seeds (slit or unslit) that evidenced a dark, circular depression at the opposite (round) end of the seed germinated after their second winter. More photos and commentary at the Ypsilanti, Michigan Torreya page. Visit the "Germinating seeds" section within our "Propagation" page for more photos and guidance from other Torreya Guardians, along with information gathered from scholarly papers. • April 2023/ Connie Barlow / Review paper features Florida Torreya as one of a very few examples of "assisted migration" already underway — anywhere in the world. "The application of assisted migration as a climate change adaptation tactic: An evidence map and synthesis", 2023, by William M. Twardek and 5 coauthors, published in Biological Conservation. The paper states: "Assisted migration has been implemented very few times as a conservation tactic.... Assisted migration was most common for plants (particularly trees), followed by birds, and was rarely implemented for other taxa."    The text highlighted at left of FLORIDA TORREYA is the team's summary of just five case studies globally that were carried out "for the purpose of conservation or management, rather than for experimentation or some other purpose." Torreya Guardians is noted as a "citizen science group." Our results are judged as "interesting." • February 2023/ Connie Barlow / Preparing for 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act    December 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act in the USA. I was a senior in college then and cannot recall that I was aware of that momentous event. Lots of organizations are beginning to appear in the news about it. At left is the image used by the Center for Biological Diversity in their 2 February 2023 press release, titled "Celebrating 50 Years of Endangered Species Act Success". Three national journalism outlets already contacted me — just for background. Whether and how Torreya Guardians shows up in the news this year is yet to be determined. Suffice it to say that, as founder of our group (and still, chief contact), I will do my best to insist on a site visit to one or more of our successful volunteer planters. I regard our website as the best archival source for anyone to learn our history, to dig into the controversies, and to easily access the online resources of the official recovery program (both USA government and the several participating institutions). Because the US official "Record of Actions" page is difficult to use in its tabular form, today I excerpted and posted in pdf what I regard as the most important historical records of action documented officially. • February 2023/ Buford Pruitt / Remembering squirrels are important local seed dispersers BUFORD PRUITT, a wildlife biologist, is a very successful planter of Florida Torreya at his rural home near Brevard, NC. Visit Pruitt's Torreya webpage on this website. This month he contributed a 3-page advocacy essay: "Torrey Squirrels"    "...Torreya Guardians already know that the Eastern Gray Squirrel can affect our assisted migration tactics. This rodent (1) raids mother trees of their seeds, (2) steals potted seeds, and (3) caches seeds in developed areas and wildlands that can germinate and grow into naturally occurring individuals and colonies. Although we know this third thing, and we are happy about it when new seedlings 'volunteer,' we have historically focused on the first two annoyances. In my view, this is because our historical charge has been to propagate and migrate. Obviously, we cannot increase the population until we learn how to propagate and nurture it. I believe we have now done those two things well enough to start looking at natural colonization strategies...." • February 2023/ Connie Barlow / Using our Torreya photos and learnings in my photo-essay to help Coast Redwood planters Although Genus TORREYA will always be my top priority as a citizen volunteer, beginning in 2014 I started video documentation and advocacy of assisted migration for other tree species, too. These are listed and linked in my "Climate, Trees, and Legacy" webpage.     Owing to 18 years of an itinerant lifestyle with my husband, Michael Dowd, (which ended during the covid lockdowns), I have been blessed with in-forest experience of COAST REDWOOD. I was surprised that I learned far more about this stunningly miraculous species by many months of exploration of regrowth redwood forests — rather than the old growth in parks.    As with Torreya, Coast Redwoods have lignotubers and a nearly immortal ability to use prolific basal sprouting to regrow giant trees from the same root system, post-logging (and post-fire). In 2023 journalist interest in "assisted migration" has soared, and Torreya Guardians is of interest to them. But of greatest interest are the old horticultural plantings of this California giant that document how fog belts of the Pacific Northwest (even B.C.) already superb habitat for helping redwoods track climate warming and drying. To help both the journalists and the northward planters learn about redwood's growth capacities, I found that PHOTOS and LEARNINGS about genus Torreya that our group has made actually offer important insights for the assisted migration of Coast Redwood. Therefore, I created a multi-part PHOTO-ESSAY, "Growth Capacities of COAST REDWOOD". Two sections feature what we have learned about genus TORREYA: "Fallen Branches Sprout by Layering" and, especially, "Propagation from Cuttings." • January 2023/ Connie Barlow / Robin Wall Kimmerer advocates "helping forests walk" Robin Wall Kimmerer spoke at the "Right Here, Right Now Global Climate Summit" at the University of Colorado, December 2022. The video was posted on youtube January 2023. The LINK here goes directly to timecode 41:04, where Robin uses her own Indigenous term, "helping forests walk," to speak about "assisted migration" of plants as a traditional application of the value of "reciprocity" among native peoples on this continent. EXCERPTS: "I think about the cultural value of thinking that our actions are not only on behalf of human people, of course, but on behalf of our more-than-human relatives. An aspect of that, that we can share, to perhaps guide some climate-related solutions are things like assisted migration — what one of my really respected teachers, Henry Lickers, called, 'Helping forests walk.'    "... It is our responsibility as human people who have been gifted by so much from the plants that we need to reciprocate with our gifts — particularly in this time when the climate is changing so fast that our plant relatives can't move on their own. So the kinds of things that I would advocate sharing with the climate science community are these strategies of things like assisted migration. That is, the way in which our people participated in carrying our plant relatives around, from place to place, to new habitats as the environment changed.      "It's an exchange of gifts: our human gift of mobility and seed planting in return for the gifts of the plants. And those kinds of broad values coupled to action." • January 2023/ Paul Camire / Photo update of Michigan torreyas plus news of Chinese Torreya video Editor's Note: In addition to sending photos of his within-forest plantings of torreya in Michigan — all protected by deer-proof cages, PAUL CAMIRE alerted me to a Chinese video (on youtube) of that country's native Torreya grandis.   Connie Barlow writes: The IMAGE LEFT is how the screen captures I took now appear within the "Other Species of Genus Torreya", section of our immense webpage titled, "Natural History of Torreya taxifolia. Visit that section to access the video — and to read in the caption what I learned about this genus — including the likelihood that harvesting of the seed for processing into a highly regarded "nut" food occurs well before the ripening is complete. Early harvesting ensures that the seed coat has not yet hardened, and thus does not need to be removed. • January 2023/ Connie Barlow / Our CALIFORNIA TORREYA webpage is updated and expanded Torreya Guardians now has a Torreya californica subgroup! Our website made it possible for citizens in the home range of California Torreya to connect with, thus far, one volunteer planter (with an excellent forested ravine on his property) in the Pacific Northwest.      For many years, Californians have been contributing photos of their own native Torreya trees (close cousin of Florida Torreya) that they encounter in the wilds of the Coast Range and Sierras. I then post the photos in the California section of this website. Initially, posting the Torreya californica photos was simply to help our own planters of this genus in the eastern USA locate suitable habitats.      It is gratifying that "assisted migration" has now begun for California torreya — well before it might qualify for listing as an endangered species. Endangered species listing of Florida Torreya in 1984 made it difficult for we citizens, beginning in 2005, to access genetically diverse seeds for our northward planting efforts.      Below is the new and expanded Table of Contents for the California Torreya page: • December 2022/ Michael Heim / A Wollemia Christmas Tree in Wisconsin (potted, of course) Like our own glacial relict, Torreya taxifolia, Wollemia is making a last stand in the coolest place it could find: the bottom of deep, nearly inaccessible canyon in southeastern Australia. Sadly, unlike Torreya, there is as yet no citizen or governmental project aiming to "rewild" this remarkable tree into a poleward location (are there any in the southern hemisphere?) where it could thrive over a larger geographic range.    PHOTO LEFT: Our Wisconsin Torreya planter sent us this photo of the Christmas tree that he, as a self-described "plant nerd," is enjoying this season. It is none other than the famous "living fossil" plant of Australia, discovered alive in 1994. This is the monotypic genus Wollemia. All Wollemia here in the USA in horticultural circulation are rooted branchlets. Mike sets this potted specimen outdoors in the warm seasons, bringing it back inside each winter. PHOTO RIGHT: Earlier this month, Mike sent Torreya Guardians this photo of an ericad shrub native to the southern Appalachians that he had planted in his Wisconsin forest: Pieris floribunda. • December 2022/ Eric Hongisto / Documented another large CALIFORNIA TORREYA (Bolinas Ridge)    ERIC HONGISTO writes: I found another great grove near top of Bolinas Ridge, above Samuel P Taylor park — maybe 200 trees inside a mature Fir and Bay mixed forest. Most of the Nutmegs [Torreya] are on the young side. The best one was a huge double clonal structure. PHOTO LEFT. FYI, 5 miles from parking lot, if you use 'proper trails' and then some bushwack down from ridge (approx. 800') to the tree.    38.01850&° N, 122.73963° W NOTE BY EDITOR, Connie Barlow: I like to post photos by Californians who are finding new giant California Torreya trees — usually by bushwhacking into likely areas. It is a reminder that there is no scientific evidence on size or age contraints for Florida torreya. By the time botanical documentation occurred, settlers had been utilizing the valuable wood. As well, I have seen photos of Asian species (T. grandis and T. nucifera) that are as big as those documented in California. • December 2022/ Buford Pruitt / December 2022 photos of 14 torreyas planted in my forest, BREVARD, NC    LEFT: Photos of one of the biggest and one of the smallest torreya trees. EDITOR'S NOTE: See photos of all 14 trees, along with other photos and reports, in the chronologically organized Brevard NC torreyas. That page goes back to 2012, based on seeds Pruitt received from the 2010 and 2011 harvests by Torreya Guardians. Pruitt reports that height differences are primarily attributed to differences in sunlight. He also reports that none have yet grown any reproductive buds, and that deer haven't browsed the leaders and long branches that protrude over or through the cages. He keeps them caged primarily to prevent buck antler-rubbing (and is thankful that his neighbors hunt deer on their properties). • December 2022/ Paul Camire / News article links Torreya at Caroline Dormon preserve (Louisiana) with Torreya Guardians planting at Junaluska, NC    In 2008, the first group planting of Florida Torreya by Torreya Guardians took place at Corneille Bryan Native Garden in Lake Junaluska, NC. I found this undated article online (probably from the Charlotte Observer). It shows that Caroline Dormon of Louisiana visited that garden long ago — and several Torreya Guardians visited in 2018 the giant female Torreya that Caroline had planted at Dormon Preserve. As it turns out, the writer of this article, Elizabeth Lawrence, was a famous gardener herself. As presented on the website of Elizabeth Lawrence House and Garden: Elizabeth Lawrence (1904-1985) is an internationally known garden writer. She is regarded as one of three preeminent figures in the horticultural history of the Southeast, sharing this short list with Thomas Jefferson and J.C. Raulston. She is also listed among the top twenty-five gardeners of all time. The work she did while designing, writing and gardening at her home in Charlotte, North Carolina, contributed greatly to that status. • December 2022/ Connie Barlow / "Budcapping" the leader growth is added to deer-prevention section of our PROPAGATION page A Minnesota Public Radio News story on DEER-PROOFING WHITE PINE SEEDLINGS in Minnesota was added to our webpage here of Best Practices for PROPAGATION. The article was published 22 November 2022 and is titled, "Bringing back the white pine, a foundational American tree", by Dan Kraker, Deer Lake, Minnesota.    BEST PRACTICE: BUDCAP THE LEADER WITH PAPER AND A STAPLE ... So John Rajala's father, Jack, started fiddling with different ways to discourage deer from munching the trees. They experimented with rotten egg mixes, and different commercial products. But what worked best was stapling a folded piece of paper over the bud. Simple, but backbreaking and incredibly time-intensive work. It's called "budcapping," and now it's used by pretty much anyone who plants trees in the North Woods. Jack Rajala detailed the work in his book titled Bringing Back the White Pine. John Rajala said over the years his family has planted, and budcapped, millions of white pines. You see evidence of it all throughout the forest, small squares of white paper topping tiny trees dotting the forest floor. Note: Wisconsin Torreya planter, Mike Heim, reports: "I'm already budcapping my tuliptrees with knee-high nylons held on by twist-ties from supermarket cilantro bundles." • November 2022/ Sharon Mohney / Virginia planter chooses sites with fern and lycopod evergreen camouflage    Sharon Mohney in Buchanan, VA captured this photo of an unbrowsed seedling camouflaged by an evergreen fern. Notice that this site has two flags. When freeplanting the seeds in November 2020, she marked each site with a flag. Now, when she spots a seedling, she installs a second flag, so that the seedling locations are documented — and thus can be confirmed in future years as to survival and possible demise by deer browsing. She wrote: "The plant in the foreground of my photo is, I believe, Diphasiastrum digitatum rather than a Selaginella. I have used it as a protective cover for my torreya plantings when Christmas ferns weren't nearby." Editor's note: This innovation in using a clonal evergreen lycopod for camouflage is very interesting, so I added this photo and caption to the camouflage section of our Freeplanting webpage. • November 2022/ Connie Barlow / 83 seeds from 2022 harvest planted in DEER-FREE forest slopes; ongoing experiments with 2021 harvested seeds    My share (some 400 seeds) from this year's harvest of torreya seeds from one horticultural planting in Clinton, NC, is mostly being used at or near my home in Ypsilanti, Michigan, for experimental plantings — especially at exceedingly rare DEER-FREE SITES along our major river. (Deer herbivory has been so problematic for volunteer planters that losses have been great or investments in deer-proof cages have been necessary.) Each DEER-FREE site is located on a downtown stretch of steeply sloping forested edges of the Huron River. These were reinforced long ago by solid concrete lower portions (red outline on map above) or a series of concrete and asphalt blocks onto which trees and woody plants (especially Amur Honeysuckle) have taken hold. Natural regeneration over many decades have produced patches of good soil into which I put seeds (usually 4 to 6 inches deep, to escape detection by rodents) of America's most endangered conifer tree. PHOTO ABOVE shows the unusual cracked seedcoats of a small portion of the 2022 harvest, through which the vibrant red seed itself is seen — clearly, not yet rotting. So these I needed to put into final destinations immediately. As well, the cracked seed farthest right displays a dark indentation on its round, non-germinating end (germination happens at the pointy end). So some of these seeds I also planted this month (turquoise outline above). PHOTO BELOW shows the remaining seeds from 2021 harvest being tested in a safe, outdoor container. Scrutiny of seed characteristics (especially "slit" v. "unslit" over the germination point after a second full summer) may help us predict which seeds require only one additional winter to sprout. (Visit the Torreya Guardians PROPAGATION page for many more learnings and recommendations.)     VISIT Connie's YPSILANTI MICHIGAN Torreya webpage. • November 2022/ Connie Barlow / New VIDEO summarizes history of TORREYA GUARDIANS EPISODE 35: Torreya Guardians - Reflections by Connie Barlow    While cleaning and sorting torreya seeds freshly harvested from a private home in Clinton, NC, Connie extemporaneously delivers the history of significant beginnings, achievements, and frustrating institutional obstacles that she and other volunteers encountered during nearly two decades of action and advocacy in behalf of this endangered subcanopy tree. The final 5 minutes is where she explains the new governmental proposal to authorize "assisted migration" for climate threatened species, such as this glacial relict. Length: 43 minutes, with timecoded table of topics in the youtube caption. Access the full list of TG videos. • November 2022/ Eric Hongisto / Photo of large CALIFORNIA TORREYA north of San Francisco    ERIC HONGISTO writes: "This torreya is one of the largest in the three known groves at Fort Ross State Historic Park. This grove has 15 trees connected over 1/4 acre. It is directly on the San Andreas Fault, east of the creek. You can see the tree being pulled slowly, and adjusting. On both sides of the fault are old growth redwoods." NOTE BY EDITOR, Connie Barlow: Beginning about two years ago, several Californians have been sending me photos and ideas about Florida Torreya's California cousin. Although there is no doubt that the species could do well in the subcanopy of Pacific Northwest forests, the rugged topography of this Coast Range section of California affords the trees shady north slopes and deep canyons for healthy living today. I have been adding these new photos, with captions, to the California Torreya webpages I maintain on this website. • November 2022/ Fred Bess / Report of torreya seed harvest, Cleveland OHIO    November 3: "After the squirrels got a fair number from the two front females, the count is +/- 230 seeds." Update November 6: "As I was mowing the lawn I found an additional 15 seeds under the Torreyas that had apparently dropped off — mostly from the big female in the front yard." Access Fred's torreya webpage: Cleveland, Ohio. • October 2022/ Connie Barlow / Two new articles show our pioneering of "assisted migration" is becoming mainstream    In the OCTOBER 2022 section of the lengthy "Assisted Migration Scholarly Links" webpage on this website, I posted links and excerpts for two really important articles: • "Last Resort: Moving Endangered Species in Order to Save Them" by Zach St. George, in Yale Environment 360. This is the first substantive news report of a historic proposal in June 2022 by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to amend its regulations in order to expressly authorize "assisted migration" as a tool for not just "protecting" relict species in place but to enable full-out "recovery" by moving them to habitats where they can thrive. (See the August and June entries below on this page, where I excerpted the regulatory proposal.) In this new article, the work of Torreya Guardians is mentioned: "A group of private citizens planted the endangered Florida Torreya, an evergreen in the yew family that is native to riparian areas in Florida and Georgia, far to the north, throughout the eastern United States." • "Potential for Assisted Migration of Coast Redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) to Vancouver Island", by Richard S. Winder et al., was published by Natural Resources Canada. I point to it here because, if we are considered too radical, then what about this professional proposal to move California redwoods to Canada?! (Also, I am referenced in the article for my video documentation of thriving horticultural plantings in the Seattle area.) • October 2022/ Mike Heim / After two winters and summers, two torreya seedlings have appeared Mike Heim took photos of two new seedlings that emerged from seeds planted directly into his forest (within a fenced deer exclosure). He wrote: "It's taken 2 winters for them to germinate. Probably more on the way next year." More information on Mike's Hayward, Wisconsin Torreya page.   • October 2022/ Connie Barlow / Info on a wild forest in China containing 2,800 Torreya A 2022 news report, China: Wild, ancient Torreya Forest in Hunan, China:    EXCERPTS (of English translation): ... It is the city tree of Ningxiang City.... Yueshan Village occupies more than 68% of the forest land, and more than 2,800 wild Torreya trees are hidden in the depths of the forest. They were discovered by the forestry department for the first time around 1990.... A thousand-year-old Torreya tree came into view. The diameter of the trunk was so thick that it took six adults to hold hands to surround it. In the passage of time, it has stood quietly here for more than a thousand years.... The torreya tree likes a humid, low-light and cool climate, and the mountainside with less direct sunlight is the best habitat. The wild ancient torreya community is located in the mountain forest at an altitude of 200 to 500 meters in Yueshan Village, and the villagers living in the surrounding area are not familiar with it. • September 2022/ Bob Miller / Joyful discovery of a torreya (from seed planted May 2015) by a log while removing invasives    Email from BOB MILLER (Torreya planter near Cincinnati Ohio) to Connie Barlow: "An upside of removing invasive plants from our woods is that I find interesting things. This Torreya is on the south-facing hillside across from the front of our house and is the first I've found there. Looks very happy!" Editor's Note: We have long postulated that the poor success rate of the May 2015 free-planting into wild forest may owe to shallow seed-planting that led to rodents detecting seeds, large local numbers of deer nipping off newly emerged seedlings, or the simple fact that seedlings are difficult to spot amidst fallen leaves. Did this seed (or seedling) benefit from a treefall that kept it hidden? • September 2022/ Fred Bess / Torreyas at Ohio State University's arboretum doing well.    FRED BESS writes: "I visited Secrest Arboretum Friday and walked around with the new curator Jason Veil. He took me to see the two Torreya taxifolia trees they have planted out (photos left.) Jason is thrilled with the opportunity to get more seeds, either from me or from other sources. I will be sharing a fair number of my tree's seeds with them." Editor's note: Fred Bess donated 20 seeds to Secrest Arboretum in 2011. (Visit the Secrest Arboretum Torreya page.) Fred is one of our most successful Torreya planters and the first to have his plantings produce seeds as far north as Ohio. Visit his photo-rich Torreya page: Cleveland, Ohio, Torreya. • September 2022/ Clint Bancroft / Proof that a basal sprout will form on the rooted cutting of the apical tip of a basal stem cut from another torreya    Email from CLINT BANCROFT (Torreya planter in Ocoee watershed of Tennessee) to Connie Barlow: "We have wondered if a rooted apical basal sprout will eventually form its own basal sprouts. This PHOTO shows a basal sprout which has formed on a rooted apical cutting from one the Highlands, NC trees. My tag says it is from a cutting I took there in October 2017." __________ EDITOR'S NOTE: Finally, we have confirmation that not only will a rooted cutting of the apical tip of a basal stem grow into a tree-like (rather than shrubby) form. Now we know that it will also grow basals of its own! This assures us that, as with its wild cousin California Torreya, Florida Torreya grown from apical basal cuttings will indeed be capable of manifesting the tree form again and again — no matter what injury may kill the main stem itself. Nobody has tried to guess whether the rootstock itself may endure for perhaps millennia because annual growth rings do not form below the soil. (Even the well-studied Coast Redwood has not had this mystery answered.) • August 2022/ Connie Barlow / I filed a comment on the proposed federal regulation to eliminate "historical range" as the sole locus for endangered species recovery    Comment time for this proposed regulation ended August 8, with a total of 553 comments — including the COMMENT I POSTED, drawing upon my experience with Torreya Guardians. I attached a 5-page pdf that, after voicing a YES to the proposal, offered RECOMMENDATIONS FOR IMPLEMENTATION: 1. Create implementation frameworks and policies that are distinct for plants. 2. Encourage nongovernmental entities to use the ESA "exception" for plants. 3. Follow the lead of the USDA Forest Service [in their own "assisted migration" terminology and actions. 4. Facilitate respectful dialogue and understandings of worldview differences. • Barlow Comment, 5-page PDF here or here • Barlow summary of key institutional comments (10 pages PDF) • August 2022/ Connie Barlow / I spent three weeks improving the wikipedia page on Torreya taxifolia This revised wikipedia page was a massive undertaking. Over the years, the page had languished into centering on arcane taxonomy and descriptive morphology, while containing factual errors (mostly on noncontroversial topics), and avoiding altogether mention of the central role this species has served in nurturing professional discussion about the merits and risks of assisted migration for climate-stressed plants, especially for "glacial relicts."    I had earned my wikipedia stripes by creating the topical flow with many scholarly references for the (new in 2021) page, "Assisted migration of forests in North America. But I also learned that it is very difficult to create an objective wikipedia page on aspects of a topic when one carries a strong viewpoint. Established wikipedia editors along the way very much helped me with those learnings. Because images are so important in our learnings, you will see that I added many of my own photos and charts into the anonymous media commons for posting on wikipedia. My greatest difficulty was that, while I (as webmaster) ensure that everything is documented on our website, the actions and assertions of the botanical gardens officially in charge of this endangered species are only loosely documented online or are missing altogether. And if one can't point to an online reference, one cannot include the topic in a citable way in a wikipedia page. While one can present the documented actions by one side of a controversy (notably, our documentation of historic groves, our northward plantings, and what we have learned about best planting practices), value statements and arguments must present both sides or not be included at all. Because of the degree of controversy, I usually selected actual quotes rather than attempting to objectively summarize an argument. Finally, a huge benefit of posting information on a wikipedia page (as is also the case on our own Torreya Guardians pages) is that it is ever-after correctable and updatable. Scientific papers published in journals are not. • August 2022/ Mike Heim / List of S. Appalachian plants growing on my land in WISCONSIN    Florida Torreya is one of many plant species in North America whose historical native range is south (sometimes, far south) of Wisconsin. Mike Heim's page on the Torreya Guardians website where he reports on his plantings of FLORIDA TORREYA and FLORIDA YEW is here. We post another photo-rich page, as well, on Mike's experiments with planting species native to the Southern Appalachians and his "Tertiary Rewilding" project (Ginkgo and Metasequoia) here. IMAGE LEFT: We just posted this tabular list of the species Mike plants for his "Southern and Eastern Assisted Migration of Tree Species" experimentation in Wisconsin. (Larger versions of this image are on both of the webpages linked above.) • July 2022/ Clint Bancroft / Visits torreya seedling he donated to Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center, Chattanooga TN    CLINT WRITES: "I went to Reflection Riding Arboretum in Chattanooga today and was able to get someone to show me where they planted the Torreyas I gave them 2 years ago. There were 6 trees donated, and they already had one which was still in a one-gallon pot. They were only able to locate two of them today, but promise they will locate the remaining trees. Both the ones I got to see looked sweetly content. One had a new vertical and also had 2 basal sprouts which were not there when I donated the trees. The second had 4 new lateral branches with no vertical growth so far." PHOTO of Clint alongside one of the picture-perfect torreys at the arboretum. Visit his extensive torreya page at his forested home and land east of Chattanooga. _____ Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center is near downtown Chattanooga, TN. • July 2022/ Peter Bane and Julia Chambers / Torreyas survive winter and browsing on the east shore of Lake Michigan    NEW PAGE created for the 2022 photos and reports of both sites. 1. MUSKEGON (Montague) - Peter Bane and Keith Johnson are permaculturalists who received from Connie Barlow 40 seeds in September 2014, from the 2013 harvest. All were germinated in a hoophouse, and the survivors outplanted. As of July 2022, 3 were still alive (heavily browsed by herbivores) in nearly full-sun settings. 2. LUDINGTON (Fountain) - Julia Chambers lives in a forested rural landscape, with a great many deer. Her immediate area is mostly forest, with several small lakes nearby. To the west is mostly farm fields, with some woodlots. To the east is national forest. She received and planted one newly germinated seedling from Connie Barlow in July 2015. She received 40 freshly harvested seeds in November 2015, and she free-planted them outdoors, but either none germinated or rodents found and ate them all. The one seedling planted out of pot is still alive 7 years later, July 2022. • July 2022/ Fred Bess (Cleveland, OH) / "My cutting-grown female has outdone herself!"    FRED BESS REPORTS (Cleveland, OH): "My cutting-grown female has outdone herself! I have counted close to 100 seeds just on 3 branches (pics of two of them attached). I also find it humorous that the bulk of the seeds are on the side facing the male which, as you know, is a fair distance.... I'm not sure about elsewhere, but I have seen no issues whatsoever with squirrels beating me to the seeds. The squirrels and chipmunks leave the seeds on my trees completely alone. I allow the seeds to fully ripen and harvest without issue. In fact, I missed a half dozen or so Torreya seeds when I harvested last fall and found them under the female trees early this spring. I've stuck those into the ground of the front hill. Will keep you posted if they show up this or next spring! My Gala apple is not so lucky. As soon as the apples get half-dollar size, I have to deter the squirrels." EDITOR'S NOTE: Fred is not only one of our longest-term Florida Torreya planters. He is the record-setter for seed production in the northern states — and he regularly photo-documents his progress. Visit Fred's Cleveland OHIO torreya page. LEARNING: Because torreya seeds appear nearly full size (and round shape) in early July, even professionals may be fooled into harvesting the seeds too early, in their attempt to prevent squirrels from snatching any. Fred will be waiting another 3 to 4 months before these seeds are harvested. The casing of the seed shell is hidden — and it must fully harden before the seed is removed. • June 2022/ Connie Barlow / Proposed federal regulation no longer restricts endangered species to recovery only in "historical range."    FWS Press release quote by Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland: "Climate change and the rapid spread of invasive species pose an ever-increasing threat to native biodiversity. The time to act — and use every tool at our disposal — is now.... The growing extinction crisis highlights the importance of the Endangered Species Act and efforts to conserve species before declines become irreversible. This effort to update proven conservation tools will help ensure species on the cusp of extinction can recover and thrive for generations to come." June 7 a proposed revision of the regulations (not the law) of the Endangered Species Act was published in the Federal Register. The above link includes how to submit comments until August 8. Torreya Guardians, being an umbrella group for citizen planters, does not submit "group" comments — but any of us may do so on our own. For example, I, Connie Barlow, submitted (as an individual) a "Petition to Downlist" Florida Torreya from endangered to threatened, September 2019. The agency published its decision in September 2021. Scroll down to an October 2021 entry on this page to see highlights of the decision, including the key statement that dismisses the relevance of our own successes in northward plantings: "Ultimately, the relative reproductive success of the outplanted groves does not ameliorate the threats currently affecting the species in its historical range (i.e. low population number, rarity of habitat, and disease, USFWS 2010)." You will notice in the image above that "historical range" is being eliminated as the sole locale for effecting species recovery. That would seem to be a good thing. However, because the ESA necessarily focuses on animals (not plants), the steps for undertaking an "experimental population" outside of native range (including for climate change reasons) are fraught with regulatory procedures — much more complicated than the "assisted migration" experimentation that would have been included in the 2010 Florida Torreya recovery plan update, had not the Advisory Board voted it down. Bottom line: I personally am not inclined to file a comment, as uncomplicated citizen actions such as ours will be able to continue using the "exception" for plants (not animals) written into the act and pertaining to the distribution of horticulturally produced seeds. It remains to be seen whether any of the northward botanical gardens obtaining seeds for "safeguarding genetics" from the seed-rich ex situ plantings at Smithgall Woods and Blairsville preserves in north Georgia will ever be made available for any degree of wild "recovery" other than "preventing extinction." NOTE: 19 MAY 2022 I had submitted a 2-page "Request" for the (newly appointed) director of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to review the citizen accomplishments of Torreya Guardians. Following several paragraphs of background and the history of Torreya Guardians actions and accomplishments, I concluded this way: "REQUEST: Please have a high-level, policy staff person visit the Torreya Guardians website: http://www.torreyaguardians.org/ From the home page, click on the link titled, "Case Study of Agency Failure." As well, our "Historic Groves" link is intended to be a strong and visually rich survey of how well the climate in the Appalachians and northward supports this glacial relict's health: notably its ability to fight a range of native diseases that have made the species functionally extinct in its historically native range. As well, do take a look at our documentation of what we have learned, especially to educate and guide volunteer planters via our "Propagation" page. Finally, please consult with USDA climate lead, Chris Swanston, who is well situated to educate conservation scientists in FWS about the forestry research scholarship that has welcomed "assisted migration" as a climate adaptation tool for timber management and forest ecosystem services. A well-regarded summary of the forestry science on this topic is a wikipedia page I coauthored in 2021 with a Canadian: "Assisted migration of forests in North America." I look forward to the possibility of Florida torreya becoming a highlighted achievement of FWS for the 50th anniversary of the ESA, instead of a sad example of ongoing climate denial and hostility toward citizen contributions." • June 2022/ Clint Bancroft / Precious Norlina NC cutting of a basal tip has rooted!    BACKGROUND: December 2021, PAUL CAMIRE photo-documented the NORLINA TREE in North Carolina and took some basal sprout cuttings. PHOTO LEFT: May 10, 2022, CLINT BANCROFT sent this photo and reported that it had "rooted" (and thus was on its way to becoming a tree). Clint wrote: "I know it is rooted because I tugged on it GENTLY and got resistance. I would not have tried that this early on except, to my delight, it had put on apical and lateral growth. "The tiny five buds were present when I received the cutting from Paul, but I really did not expect to see them burst, especially during their first spring. "This appears to be the only cutting which is apical. However, they have ALL rooted (by tug test) and most have new growth." SIGNIFICANCE: Visit the OFFSPRING section of the main Norlina Tree page, and you will grasp the significance of establishing a 100% clone of this 160-year-old tree, whose descendants now inhabit many states. • June 2022/ Connie Barlow / Restructured the CALIFORNIA TORREYA webpage In 2005, I made site visits to both the Coast Range and the Sierras habitats of Florida torreya's California cousin: Torreya californica. Back then, my sole purpose was to gain (and photo-document) the growth forms and habitat characteristics — so that Torreya Guardians could choose planting sites for Florida Torreya in the Appalachian Mountains that would offer the best chances for success. Seventeen years later, there is now a second urgency: Climate change is having such an impact in California that ASSISTED MIGRATION should begin for the western Torreya species too. I spent a whole week restructuring the page (and adding a lot of photos) so that viewers could visually grasp the most important growth characteristics of the California torreya species — which very likely also will apply to Florida torreya when it has the opportunity to "rewild" in various habitats poleward of its peak glacial refuge. Here is the webpage: • California Torreya • May 2022/ Fred Bess / A bumper crop of Torreya seeds growing in Cleveland, Ohio FRED BESS writes about his 4-specimen grove of Florida Torreyas at his home in Cleveland, Ohio:    It looks like it is going to be a banner year for seed production here. See these photos (May 17) of two different branches of the cutting-grown female tree. I never imagined there could be so many cones on any one branch! It looks like a juniper loaded with cones. The other two female-cone-producing trees are also showing seed growth, but not nearly as heavily as this tree. I'll be sure to keep you posted with pictures as the season progresses. Note: I may have been premature in thinking that one of those trees is monoecious. I was looking at it with a botanist friend. Upon close inspection, all the female strobili are coming from one main trunk of the tree. I got the tree (as you know) from Woodlanders in SC years ago as a seedling. Jason and I now suspect that the seed had 2 embryos and has produced "conjoined" fraternal twins as it were: one trunk male, the other female. I suppose we will never know for sure. See Fred's cumulative Torreya report, Cleveland OHIO. • May 2022/ Connie Barlow / Important to periodically look at the USF&WS official "Reports" page for Torreya taxifolia    As webmaster of the Torreya Guardians website since 2005, I attempt to ensure that all of our own actions, accomplishments, and learnings are documented here for ourselves and others to see and evaluate through time. Our "Efforts to Save" webpage, however, provides links to the other actors in this effort (see image left). Within the "OFFICIAL PROGRAM" section, readers are encouraged to click on the link to the USF&WS Data Table: Record of Actions, and to read through the "comments" column to find the most detail on officially sanctioned efforts. A website update has put the reports in a format difficult to read, and some elements of recovery actions are very out of date.... But I encourage citizens and journalists to periodically check that official tabulation for useful updates. For example, because I recently learned of citizen interest in California to help their own Torreya species migrate northward as climate changes, I found this report element especially helpful to be aware of: ACTION #34: Conduct grafting experiments: "The recovery plan suggests grafting [asexual propagation where the tissues (vascular cambium) of one plant are fused with those of another] with T. californica. However, T. californica is exhibiting some issues with cankers caused by pathogens with a different Fusarium species which is killing the cambium." • May 2022/ Connie Barlow / Restructured two long pages on this website    Now that my husband and I are retired in southern Michigan, I have time to make this website easier to use. Two of the most important pages have grown to immense length, given topics and sections added to them over the past dozen years. The image shows the TABLES OF TOPICS, with internal links, for each of these two pages: • Torreya Natural History • Propagating Torreya • May 2022/ Connie Barlow / Visually detecting signs of PRE-GERMINATION I added a new, photo-rich section to our Torreya Guardians webpage on best practices for Propagation. The new section is: Visually detecting signs of PRE-GERMINATION.    Of the 85 seeds that I retained from the 500 seeds harvested in Clinton and Mt. Olive NC that it was my responsibility to distribute, I retained just 85 for further experimentation. Of these 85, only 1 germinated by early May, following winter stratification. Of the remaining seeds, about 1/3 showed signs of a slit at the pointed tip where germination will occur (PHOTO far left).... The other 2/3 had no slit, but all had an easy-to-peel-away thin, papery covering that left the region around the tip smooth and a light shade of brown. Visit the new signs of PRE-GERMINATION section for Connie's photos and observations on other features of post-stratification, notably dark indentations aligned with the vertical slit. She plans to continue this experiment through the summer, to discern (a) whether the slitted seeds germinate a radicle, and (b) whether any of the less developed seeds show signs of a slit happening in the months ahead, and whether any above-ground growth (a shoot) emerges this first summer, or whether all growth remains underground as rooting. • April 2022/ Connie Barlow / Finished distributing 2021 North Carolina seed harvest    Scroll down to NOVEMBER 2021 and you will see photos and summaries of Joe Facendola's seed harvest at two horticultural sites in North Carolina. Joe sent packages of large amounts of seeds right away to our stalwart planters. He then sent 500 seeds to me to distribute in smaller portions — largely to new volunteer planters in North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Indiana, and Illinois. By the time I calculated how to allocate the seeds among all 9 volunteer planters, temperatures where I live in Michigan were already heading below freezing. Torreya seeds are "recalcitrant"; they must never freeze or dry out. So I "stratified" them over winter, moving a small cooler of seeds in soil between hallway to porch as temperatures shifted back and forth around the freezing mark. This last week in April, I sent the final 5 boxes on their way. • April 2022/ Connie Barlow / New 5-rule compilation of helping Torreya escape rodent predation    Over the years, the "Propagation" page on the Torreya Guardians website has become excruciatingly long and complex, as various volunteer planters weigh in on what seems to work best — and worst. This year I've tried to consolidate that page, eliminate redundancies and add photos. This month while distributing hundreds of seeds from the 2021 seed harvest, I realized I needed to create and highlight a 5-rule section titled, "Beware of Rodents!". This way, our newest planters could quickly learn our "best practices." Rules 1 through 3 are pictured left. The remaining rules are: (4) When planting potted seedlings, add gravel to make the root zone unattractive to rodents, and (5) Avoid homegrounds of chipmunks, ground squirrels, and woodchucks. • April 2022/ Mike Heim / Florida Torreya and Yew survive another Wisconsin winter    LEFT: Florida Yew at Hayward, Wisconsin, in early April 2022. Mike Heim sent 3 photos of his Florida Torreyas peaking through the snow and one of his Florida Yew for posting on his Hayward, Wisconsin Torreya page on April 3. Mike reported that February 13 marked the lowest temperature: -29F. • April 2022/ Connie Barlow / Fusarium torreyae cannot damage Florida torreya in cooler climes Encountering a technical fusarium paper this month titled "A Global Risk Assessment of Pitch Canker Disease", alerted me to the fact that it is well known that various species of genus Fusarium become problematic in tree farm contexts only when (a) the tree species is planted in a warmer and/or wetter climate and (b) nursery conditions harm natural microbial symbionts (crucial for resisting diseases) owing to bare rooting seedlings for transport and applications of fungicide.    This motivated me to finally post not only that information onto the "Endangerment Causes" page of this website, but also to create a new section there that documents and references how Florida torreya does live asymptomatically with Fusarium torreyae if it is planted sufficiently poleward of its peak glacial refuge in Florida. In that new section you will also find 2 slides + transcribed excerpts from a February 2022 webinar in which a Torreya Keepers staff person confirmed that northward plantings of Torreya are indeed asymptomatic. Nonetheless, the official position is still strongly against "assisted migration" northward, such as conducted by Torreya Guardians volunteers. Their argument now points to lab results at the University of Florida that suggest (a) all plant materials of Torreya taxifolia do carry the fusarium and (b) that fusarium could harm other native tree species. Again, however, there is no documentation that other native trees could be injured by the fusarium within their own native ranges — all northward of Florida. Did the lab in Florida attempt to mimic climatic and soil conditions (including winter freezes) in each tree species native range? • March 2022/ Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians included in Minnesota magazine article    The current issue of Minnesota Conservation Volunteer (a magazine published by Minnesota DNR) includes an extensive article that can serve as a primer for popular audiences to learn about the three forms of climate adaptation that foresters have begun using, "Resistance, Resilience, and Assisted Migration." TORREYA GUARDIANS is favorably mentioned: "In some cases, assisted migration aims to save endangered plant species that are isolated and threatened with extinction as climate becomes unsuitable in their native range. A good example is the endangered yew Torreya taxifolia, known as "the rarest conifer in North America." It survived only in tiny areas of Florida and Georgia until the volunteer Torreya Guardians transplanted specimens to sites throughout the Appalachians and Midwest, as far north as southwestern Wisconsin." Access the FULL ARTICLE or KEY EXCERPTS • February 2022/ Connie Barlow / iNaturalist includes Torreya Guardians discoveries of Florida Torreya    I looked at the Florida Torreya page on iNaturalist for the first time. I was impressed by the content and extensive references — both old and recent. Torreya Guardians discoveries and achievements are mentioned in several places, including our Historic Groves webpage and our seed production in Cleveland. As it turns out, the i-Naturalist page is an exact copy of the "Torreya taxifolia" WIKIPEDIA page, as it currently stands. EXCERPT: "Because the confined native range of Torreya taxifolia, which includes Torreya State Park, is a well known glacial refugium,[10][43] the ecological conditions and plants that it associates with there do not provide the full picture of the habitat preferences of this species at this warming time of the Holocene. For this reason, the citizen advocacy group known as Torreya Guardians[44][45] includes a page on their website titled "Historic Groves of Torreya Trees: Long-Term Experiments in Assisted Migration."[46] "Naturalized groves" is the highest category listed, followed by "mature trees producing seeds" and "mature trees not producing seeds." As of 2021, 13 sites of historic groves are listed, described, mapped, and linked, along with three academic papers[47][48][49] that describe the importance of such groves for assessing the viability of assisted migration as climate warms. The northern-most grove producing seeds is in Cleveland, Ohio." • February 2022/ Paul Camire / Florida torreyas in another Michigan winter   Paul Camire sent 10 PHOTOS of his within-forest plantings of Torreya at the woodlot on his farm in Capac, MI. LEFT: Recovering from a deer-browsed leader. RIGHT: All torreyas are now caged, and this one is lucky enough to never have been browsed. • February 2022 / Nelson Stover / Report of the 2013 free-planting seed project in Greensboro, NC November 2021, Nelson and Elaine Stover photo-documented another year of growth on each of the seedlings that sprouted and established from seeds planted (3 inches deep) directly into the soil of the deciduous forest next to their home in Greensboro, NC.   PHOTO: From seed planted in 2013, and having first shown above-ground growth in either 2015 or 2016, this little seedling is doing well in the company of evergreen Christmas Ferns. The ferns utilize the same group of mycorrhizal symbionts as does Torreya — and they help camouflage this endangered member of the yew family from winter-hungry deer. • GREENSBORO, NC Torreya webpage. • Part 1 of 2021 REPORT. Continue to REPORTS PRIOR TO 2022 WWW www.TorreyaGuardians.org Return to HOME PAGE Annotated List of Papers/Reports Online re Assisted Migration