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Reports by Torreya Guardians Volunteers
Listed chronologically from most recent
• December 2024/ Paul Camire / Winter photos of 9 seedlings within-forest, Capac MICHIGAN
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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.
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• December 2024/ Connie Barlow / New planting in ALABAMA versus cold winter in WISCONSIN
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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.
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• December 2024/ Connie Barlow / Updated our HOME PAGE MAP and Historic Groves map
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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.
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• December 2024/ Mike Heim / Winter-time torreya beauty photo in WISCONSIN
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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).
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• November 2024/ Buford Pruitt / Photo report on all 16 torreyas in Brevard, NC
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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.
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• November 2024/ Keith Turney / Update on the 6 torreyas at Kaul Wildflower Garden, ALABAMA
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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.
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• November 2024/ Fred Bess / Photos of my front-yard torreyas plus seed count — OHIO
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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.
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• November 2024/ Connie Barlow / Video #38 created and posted: "DOGE for Endangered Plants - Cut costs, get results, follow our lead (Torreya Guardians)"
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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)"
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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
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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.
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• November 2024/ Joe Facendola / New seed cleaning method for the ~1,250 seeds collected in North Carolina
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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.
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• November 2024/ Joe Facendola and Connie Barlow/ New growth-form experiment launched in coastal North Carolina
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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.
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• November 2024/ Mike Heim/ Status of 16 young torreyas in northern WISCONSIN
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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.
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• November 2024/ Fred Bess/ Parma, OHIO, photos of seed harvest from 3 female stems
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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.
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• 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.
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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 Joseph Guite at B4 (Cowee Valley, NC) and at B5 (Tessentee Bottomlands Preserve).
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• October 2024 / Joseph Guite / Visited 3 TORREYA GUARDIANS PLANTINGS in western NC and documented SEED PRODUCTION at two of them.
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JOSEPH 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. Joseph photo-documented the 5 full-sun trees there, with seeds on 3 of them.
PHOTO BELOW: Joseph 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.
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• October 2024 / Russell Regnery / Documentation of Florida Torreya at Highlands Biological Station NC
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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.
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• September 2024 / Don Thomas / Photos of California torreya seedlings in shade v. full light
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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
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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.
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• 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:
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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• 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.
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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.
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• 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:
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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.
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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.
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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
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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:
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• 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:
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(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?
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• June 2024/ Connie Barlow/ "Latent pathogen" discoveries could help Torreya Guardians advocacy
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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
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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.
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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
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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")
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• 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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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• 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 MagazineSee if this "share" link gets you past the paywall: NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE "Redwoods"
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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.
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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
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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!
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• 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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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".
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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."
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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)
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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.
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• 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:
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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?
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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
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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
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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.
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• 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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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• 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.
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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."
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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."
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• February 2023/ Connie Barlow / Preparing for 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act
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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"
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"...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...."
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• 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.
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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 / |
