Florida Torreya

Florida Torreya is a rare conifer native to a very small area along the Apalachicola River in the Florida panhandle and adjacent southwestern Georgia, one of the most restricted natural ranges of any North American tree species. It is a small to medium sized evergreen with stiff, sharply pointed, yew like needles that have a pungent odor when crushed, and it produces a fleshy, plum like seed structure rather than a true cone. The species suffered a catastrophic population collapse in the mid twentieth century due to a still not fully understood fungal disease, and surviving wild individuals are now almost entirely small resprouting stems that rarely reach reproductive maturity. Florida Torreya is listed as critically endangered, and conservationists have debated proposals to assist its migration northward to escape disease and a warming climate in its native range.