Volunteers for Assisted Migration & Rewilding
of Torreya taxifolia
Torreya taxifolia, America's most endangered conifer tree, is on the brink of extinction in its "native range" in the Florida panhandle. As explained in the Rewilding section of this website, some Torreya Guardians have concluded that T. tax would be native to northern Florida only in the peak cold times of a glacial advance, such as occurred some 15 to 20 thousand years ago. Since then, as interglacial warming has occurred, native range for T. tax should have been moving north, well beyond the "pocket refuge" of Florida's Apalachicola River Bluffs and northward into the southern Appalachians and Cumberland Plateau.
Because T. tax specimens that were planted 60 years ago at the Biltmore Gardens in Asheville NC are thriving (and continue to produce, on their own, healthy recruitments), it can be argued that the southern Appalachians should be the destination for assisted migration of T. tax. This argument for action is based entirely on a strong biodiversity ethic: plant T. tax where it will thrive.
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Photo A Landowner Chris Larson stands by a Torreya taxifolia that she planted in 2001 from a potted seedling. Chris and her husband own the Shoal Sanctuary in the Florida Panhandle (west of the Apalachicola). Because they are managing the sanctuary for native diversity (including burning to encourage longleaf pine), this particular individual was completely denuded in a prairie fire in January 2007. She thought the leafless tree surely was dead, but just 10 months later, notice the rich growth! Chris is standing on the side of the tree that received the most intense flame, and thus the branch she holds in her right hand (and those immediately below it) are still denuded, and thus were killed. (This photo was taken in November 2007) |
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Photo B December 2007 Connie Barlow and husband Michael Dowd admire one of the Shoal Sanctuary Torreya trees planted in 2001. Although this one appears lush, a few of the branches on the western side of the tree are yellowing. Owner Chris Larsen reports that 3 of the original 8 individuals planted in 2001 yellowed and died, so this one may be on its way out. |
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Photo C This individual is expressing a lot of yellowed leaves (see closeup photo below). So when Connie Barlow visited the site in November 2007, she sprinkled agricultural lime around the base of the tree. (For a photograph of lime sprinkled around Torreya trees at the Atlanta Botanical Garden propagation center, click and scroll down to Photo F. Click here to learn about how "sudden oak death" is being fought in California by the use of lime around sickened oak trees. |
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Photo D Close-up of the Torreya tree at Shoal sanctuary pictured in Photo C above. Notice the yellowing leaves. |
The Fossil Record
The biodiversity argument for assisted migration can be supplemented by an understanding drawn from deep time: T. tax was found in previous eras in what is now North Carolina.
Torreya is a member of the ancient gymnosperm family Taxaceae, whose ancestors were evolutionarily distinct from other conifers by the Jurassic, nearly 200 million years ago.
Because Torreya pollen is indistinguishable from the pollen of yews (Taxus), bald cypress (Taxodium), and cypress (Cupressus), known fossil occurrences of this genus are limited to macrofossils (seeds, leaves, and secondary wood), and these are sparse. There are no known Cenozoic fossils of Torreya in eastern North America. The most recent macrofossils identified as the genus Torreya in eastern North America are upper Cretaceous, and these were unearthed in North Carolina and Georgia.
Because Torreya pollen is indistinguishable from that of some other conifers, only macrofossils (leaves, wood, seeds) provide evidence for how geographic range has shifted through millions of years.
Because worldwide climate during the Cretaceous was much warmer and far less seasonal than that of today, it is not surprising that Torreya macrofossils of Cretaceous age have also turned up along the Yukon River of Alaska. In western North America, there is Cenozoic fossil evidence of genus Torreya in the John Day region of Oregon (lower Eocene) and variously in California (Oligocene and late Pleistocene). Today, the genus is highly disjunct. Torreya californica survives as a rare tree, locally abundant in a score of isolated populations within the coastal mountains of central and northern California and on the west slope of the Sierras. It favors moist canyons and mid-slope streamsides, growing beneath a canopy of taller conifers and deciduous trees. Torreya nucifera is found in mountain habitats of Japan and Korea, and three other species of genus Torreya inhabit mountainous regions of China.
Recruiting Private Land-Owners
As explained in the Saving Torreya section of this website, a lot of effort is being expended to attempt (1) to preserve the few trees that remain in the wild in Florida, (2) to clone genotypes for safe-guarding in "potted orchards" in various botanical gardens, and (3) to replant progeny from the potted guardians in or near Florida native habitat. These three actions are taking place under the auspices of a legally sanctioned recovery plan for this endangered species, as administered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
The official recovery plan is not, however, the only approach available. So long as private seed stock is the source, there is nothing that prevents any landowner from planting Torreya taxifolia on his or her private property.
A no-budget, self-organizing, completely volunteer, and paperwork-free recovery "plan" is hereby proposed on this website.
Project implementation began in October 2005, with 140 seeds collected by staff from the thriving grove of T. tax at the Biltmore Gardens, Asheville NC. Discussions are underway as to seed preparation and priorities for seed distribution to botanical gardens and to private landowners with suitable forested properties in the southern Appalachians, Cumberland Plateau, and elsewhere.
FIRST REWILDING IN NORTH CAROLINA SCHEDULED FOR JULY 2008. Private lands in the Highlands/Cashiers area of western North Carolina are the locus. For more information or to sign up as a volunteer rewilder, contact: Connie Barlow.
We are happy to keep updating the list of institutions and landowners interested in obtaining seed for purposes of propagating and ultimately rewilding T. tax. Lee Barnes (Waynesville, NC) will be leading the development of guidelines for planting, nurturing, and monitoring the plants, aiming toward scientifically useful test plantings in a variety of natural forested landscapes. We will also be soliciting ideas and volunteers (including teachers who would assign projects to students) to work with private landowners in the very important task of monitoring over the course of decades
(1) how the "rewilded" trees fare and (2) what ecological effects (for good or ill) ensue from this species addition to natural ecosystems.
To DISCUSS MAKING YOUR PRIVATE FORESTED LAND AVAILABLE FOR TEST PLANTING OF T. TAX contact either:
Volunteer Coordinator of Private Lands Initiatives: Lee Barnes, Waynesville NC
Volunteer Website Master: Connie Barlow
Proposed STANDARDS FOR ASSISTED MIGRATION can be viewed on-screen or downloaded in PDF:
View STANDARDS ON-SCREEN.
View STANDARDS in PDF.
Click here for an illustrated guide to CALIFORNIA TORREYA habitat preferences, which will aid in determining best sites for planting Florida Torreya seeds for assisted migration.
What About the Florida Yew?
The Florida Yew is also found only along the Apalachicola Bluffs of northern Florida. Yew trees do not show signs of serious disease, so they are not nearly as imperilled as T. tax, but it is no longer reproducing very well in its "native range." If Florida yew was, likewise, "left behind" in its pocket refuge as the glaciers retreated, perhaps it too deserves to be considered for "rewilding" to points north.
TOP: A small grove of Florida yew is flanked by low-growing palm species. BOTTOM: close-up of the reddish bark of an old Florida yew, and a line of yew trees in front of what (may) be an old, fallen Torreya tree.
Asa Gray, from his book Darwiniana, wrote:
"Moreover, the Torreya of Florida is associated with a yew; and the trees of this grove are the only yew-trees of Eastern North America; for the yew of our Northern woods is a decumbent shrub. A yew-tree, perhaps the same, is found with Taxodium in the temperate parts of Mexico. The only other yews in America grow with the redwoods and the other Torreya in California, and extend northward into Oregon. Yews are also associated with Torreya in Japan; and they extend westward through Mantchooria and the Himalayas to Western Europe, and even to the Azores Islands, where occurs the common yew of the Old World." Learn about other efforts to SAVE Torreya taxifolia from extinction.
An excellent FORUM for discussing questions and issues pertaining to conifers can be accessed by clicking here for the CONIFERS PAGE OF GARDEN.WEB.COM.
