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."
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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.
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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
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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.)
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• July 2022/ Clint Bancroft / Visits torreya seedling he donated to Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center, Chattanooga TN
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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.
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Reflection Riding Arboretum & Nature Center is near downtown Chattanooga, TN.
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• July 2022/ Peter Bane and Julia Chambers / Torreyas survive winter and browsing on the east shore of Lake Michigan
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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.
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• July 2022/ Fred Bess (Cleveland, OH) / "My cutting-grown female has outdone herself!"
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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. IÕve 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.
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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."
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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."
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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!
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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.
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• June 2022/ Connie Barlow / Restructured the CALIFORNIA TORREYA webpage
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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.
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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:
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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.
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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
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• May 2022/ Connie Barlow / Important to periodically look at the USF&WS official "Reports" page for Torreya taxifolia
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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....
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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
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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
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• 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.
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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)....
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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
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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.
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• April 2022/ Connie Barlow / New 5-rule compilation of helping Torreya escape rodent predation
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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.
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• April 2022/ Mike Heim / Florida Torreya and Yew survive another Wisconsin winter
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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.
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• 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.
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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?
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• March 2022/ Connie Barlow / Torreya Guardians included in Minnesota magazine article
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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
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• February 2022/ Connie Barlow / iNaturalist includes Torreya Guardians discoveries of Florida Torreya
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
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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.
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• 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.
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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.
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• December 2021 / Paul Camire / She lives! A site visit to the old Norlina tree, NC
Paul Camire is our Torreya planter in the "thumb" of Michigan. He is also our most diligent documenter of old horticultural plantings of torreya both onsite and as documented (usually archivally) on the web. December 12 Paul (pictured at left) sent an email to Connie Barlow, with photos. Paul wrote:
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"On my way back home from Florida yesterday, I made a major detour and went to find out if the Norlina tree still exists. It Lives!
I was allowed to take a few cuttings that I've already let Jack and Clint know are coming their way."
View PAUL CAMIRE'S FULL REPORT (with photos) at our Norlina NC tree webpage.
Editor's comment: Because I have never seen this pattern of recovery in any tree before, I sure hope somebody with expertise will attempt to discern what calamity happened, and then the details of vegetative recovery.
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• November 2021 / Connie Barlow / Reddit now has a community on the topic "Assisted Migration"
Torreya Guardians was apparently a key inspiration for a Reddit contributor to create a new community: r/Assisted Migration.
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The originator/"moderator" has well presented the concept in both the choice of title and what already exists on the site's wiki tab. I have great hope that this new site will rapidly evolve into the prime place for supportive people not only to interact, but to create, collaborate, and post actual AM projects.
Today I posted a suggestion to link to an Indigenous project, "Helping Forests Walk" and to the U.S. gov Climate Resilience Toolkit website that also points to this Indigenous title for assisted migration.
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• November 2021 / Sara Evans / November 2021 photos of 2008 plantings at Waynesville, NC
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Photos by Sara Evans. Caption by Connie Barlow. _____________________
July 2008, Torreya Guardians planted 31 potted seedlings on the steep forested property of Sara Evans, a bit west of Waynesville NC.
From the early years, and continuing today, the two lushest and healthiest trees have been the two planted nearest to the "weeping wall" waterfall: "Maxilla" to the left of it and "Celia" to the right (and upslope).
Sara Evans took several photos of these two torreyas, mid November 2021.
PHOTO LEFT: The "Celia" Torreya, named for Celia Hunter.
Visit the Waynesville Torreya webpage for all photos. |
• November 2021 / Joe Facendola / 1,480 seeds collected from the Mt. Olive NC torreya trees
JOE FACENDOLA, for the third year in a row, continues his late-October / early-November seed gathering at private homes in Clinton NC (see report immediately below) and Mt. Olive. Joe reports that Mrs. Bullard also authorized his collection of 3 seedlings this year, as well.
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• November 2021 / Joe Facendola / Seeds, seedlings, and basal cuttings from the Clinton NC tree
JOE FACENDOLA, for the third year in a row, continues his late-October / early-November seed gathering at the homes of Mrs. Kennedy in Clinton NC and Mrs. Bullard in nearby Mt. Olive.
In addition to 670 seeds, Joe also collected this year 13 seedlings (photo below left) from where squirrels had kindly buried seeds into non-mowed sections of the front yard in Clinton NC.
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New this year, he cut tips and lower segments of the vertical stems of basal sprouts (photo) which are the only parts of the plant that will carry forward the tree form when carefully rooted.
This year Joe photographed the two largest regrowth torreya trees on the property which may be vital for ensuring a pollen source for healthy genetics of the lone seed-bearing tree.
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Visit the Clinton NC torreya page for a photo-rich chronological history. There you will also see photos of the two regrowth torreyas that may be crucial providers of pollen.
• October 2021 / Fred Bess / 168 seeds collected from his grove in Cleveland, Ohio
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Fred planted his trees from potted seedlings in 2009. Because he planted in his front yard, in full sun, he started getting a few seeds in 2017.
Now, in 2021, he reports an astounding 168 seeds.
More PHOTOS and commentary at the |