1. Chauncey Beadle, 1866-1950, botanist/horticulturalist who established a grove of Torreya taxifolia at the Biltmore Gardens (Asheville NC) some 80 years ago. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
2. Hardy Croom, 1797-1837, botanist who first observed and described for western science the genus Torreya (named after his colleague, the botanist John Torrey). The species he observed was the one then-flourishing along the east bank of the Apalachicola River in northern Florida — the very species that Torreya Guardians formed to assist. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
3. Asa Gray, 1810-1888, American botanist and chief American supporter of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. In the summer of 1875, Gray travelled to the Apalachicola of Florida, calling this journey "a pious pilgrimage to the secluded native haunts of that rarest of trees, the Torreya taxifolia." Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
4. Lucy Braun, 1889-1971, American botanist and ecologist whose life work culminated in a 1950 book still consulted today: Deciduous Forests of Eastern North America, in which she offers a classification for forest types within this floral province, based on decades of wide-ranging explorations of old-growth forests, now lost. She was also the first female president of the Ecological Society of America. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
5. Rachel Carson, 1739-1833, beloved American ecologist and writer whose courageous book Silent Spring is widely regarded as extending the conservation worldview into what is now regarded as environmentalism. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
6. William Bartram, 1729-1833, American naturalist and botanical collector (and illustrator) whose explorations (some with his father, John) culminated in important discoveries, including the only field observations of Franklinia alatamaha before it went extinct in the wild. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
7. Wangaari Mathai, born in Kenya in 1940, she founded the Greenbelt Movement in 1977, which encouraged and empowered African women and men to restore rural landscapes by planting trees. First African woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
8. Aldo Leopold, 1887-1948, American forester regarded as one of the great founders of both the wilderness movement and the deep-ecology worldview. His compilation of essays, A Sand County Almanac, is widely regarded as one of the great documents of inspirited conservation writing, infused with heart and imagination as well as formidable scientific knowledge and experience. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
9. Hazel Delcourt, contemporary Quaternary paleoecologist (retired from University of Tennessee, Knoxville) who studied time sequences of pollens buried in bog sediments in order to track the migration of vegetation northward following the end of the peak glacial period 18,000 years ago. Her 2002 book, Forests in Peril: Tracking Deciduous Trees from Ice-Age Refuges into the Greenhouse World, inspired the email discussion about whether Torreya taxifolia might have been "left behind" in its glacial pocket reserve and thus might benefit from human assistance in moving it north. (This discussion then led to the formation of Torreya Guardians.) Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
10. Henry David Thoreau, 1817-1862, American naturalist and writer best known for his book Walden, and who is revered for his advocacy of simple living and the preservation of natural landscapes. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
11. Johnny Appleseed, 1774-1845, nickname of John Chapman, the legendary American who generously provisioned EuroAmerican settlers arriving in Ohio with apple seedlings and seeds. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
12. John Muir, 1838-1914, great American conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
13. Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1846, American naturalist and statesman who envisioned the Lewis and Clark expedition while serving as the third president of the United States. Not only interested in finding a water route for westward commerce, Jefferson was hoping that the expedition would find solid evidence that such behemoths as mammoths, mastodons, and ground sloths (then known only via bones) still existed. He wrote, "Such is the economy of nature, that no instance can be produced of her having permitted any one race of her animals to become extinct, of her having formed any link in her great work so weak as to be broken." Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
14. Paul S. Martin, renowned contemporary Pleistocene ecologist and earliest advocate of the "Overkill Hypothesis" of end-Pleistocene extinctions. He was one of the communicants in the email correspondence that eventually led to the formation of Torreya Guardians. Co-author (with Connie Barlow) of the 2004 paper, "Bring Torreya taxifolia North — Now," which was published in Wild Earth. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
15. Mardy Murie, 1902-2003, called the "Grandmother of the Conservation Movement" in America, she was an early and powerful advocate for the establishment of wilderness areas in America, and the designation of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
16. Ed Abbey, 1927-1989, writer and conservationist whose radical proposals inspired many in the current generations of conservationists, including the founders of Earth First! Abbey heralded the idea that individuals, and small bands of individuals, need not be limited by the inertia of ideas and values. Rather, individuals could boldly step forward and act in behalf of wild species and wild places. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
17. Stewart Udall, born in 1920, a renowned conservationist who was able to make a big and lasting difference in the United States while serving as Secretary of Interior under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations (1961-1969). Successes included passage of the Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Endangered Species Act of 1966.
18. Bill Mollison, born in 1928 (Tasmania), has been called "the father of permaculture," a term he helped establish in the 1970s to signify a worldview and action shift that would lead to truly sustainable ("permanent") forms of agriculture and human culture through the interworkings of both, often via smaller-scale, intentional communities. An inspirational mentor of Torreya Guardian (and permaculturist) Lee Barnes. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
19. Julia Butterfly Hill, born in 1974, a modern-day hero of the conservation and biodiversity movements and an inspirational force for young people, owing to her 2-year tree-sit in the ancient California Redwood tree which she called "Luna." By her example and her mentoring work, she empowers individuals to step forward and make a difference in defending the organisms, species, and natural places that one loves. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
20. John James Audubon, 1785-1851, renowned American naturalist and artist with an inordinate fondness for birds. His early warnings of the need to prohibit overhunting and habitat destruction were prescient and led to the founding of the early conservation magazine, Audubon. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
21. Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, renowned British naturalist whose attention to detail, wide-ranging curiosity, perseverence in studying the natural world and in pondering underlying causes led not only to his proposing the theory of natural selection as the underlying cause of biological "descent with modification," but also to his producing a book in 1859 that solidly established the fact of biological descent and thus the natural kinship of all living beings. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
22. Joanna Macy, born in 1929, a leader in the ecospirituality and deep-ecology movements who is a leader bringing heart (and heartbreak) into one's choice of action in the world. Co-developer (with John Seed) of the "Council of All Beings," an experiential process for connecting with the suffering of species threatened by human actions. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
23. Loren Eiseley, 1907-1977, naturalist and renowned American essayist who pioneered a form of writing that married the science of evolution with autobiographical vignettes, profound inward reflections, and poetic imagery to produce works that have inspired many a conservationist — among them, Annie Dillard and Torreya Guardian Connie Barlow. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
24. Julian Huxley, 1887-1975, evolution scientist, award-winning writer, leading conservationist, and world-renowned popularizer of the "evolutionary epic" in the mid 20th Century. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
25. Kokopelli, an important figure in the stories of some indigenous peoples of the warm deserts of Turtle Island (a.k.a., North America). Kokopelli is portrayed as a wanderer who carries seeds and music from one culture to another. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
26. David Brower, 1912-2000, renowned American conservationist who led the Sierra Club during the push for writing and passage of the Wilderness Act of 1966. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
27. Annie Dillard , acclaimed writer best known by conservationists for her first book, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, which (as with Eisleley's books) married a scientific and evolutionary outlook with deeply spiritual and poetic musings. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
28. Bob Zahner, 1923-2007, forester and conservationist, especially of the Highlands region of North Carolina. Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
29. Berry, Thomas, born 1914 in Greensboro NC, ecospiritual leader of the "epic of evolution" movement and proponent of "biocracy" (a democracy that expressly includes the voice of all species in decision-making). He is a proponent of a "mutually enhancing human-Earth relationship." Click for full HISTORY and PHOTOS of this named tree, from planting of seedling to current.
