Evans Property, Waynesville, North Carolina (planted July 2008)
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Kokopelli Tree
Evans Property, Waynesville, North Carolina (planted July 2008)
"Kokopelli" (#25), shown by Russ Regnery, 7/31/08.
One week after planting in 2008.
Kokopelli is foreground center; camera is
looking upslope from ground level.
2008: All healthy Torreya seedlings have
stem sprouts at base,
but this seedling had a stem
sprout (left) unusually large.
September 23, 2010: noonish on sunny day
downslope view (see road in background)
9/23/10: upslope view (hand at top of tree)
(photos by Connie Barlow)
9/23/10: top-down view; vigorous central stem
Kokopelli specimen is one of 4 specimens that were planted on a south-facing slope intermediate between the driest East part of the Evans property and the east-facing moist ravine slope on the West side of the property. Kokopelli, however, has by far the lushest surrounding plants, and it is also by far the healthiest of the four. (3,400 feet elevation)
LEFT (May 18, 2012): Rhododendron is tall center sapling. Road visible downslope. Sourwood is nearby, which is a too-dry indicator species. But on the hopeful side, we did see a lot of deciduous wood fern and some Christmas fern.
RIGHT (May 18, 2012): Rhodie in foreground.
LEFT (May 18, 2012): Kokopelli has both new healthy crown growth and a healthy basal coppice stem. (Torreya tends to keep a small healthy basal stem as a back-up in case the main stem begins to fail.)
RIGHT (May 18, 2012): Notice that the main stem has a new apical shoot from the top center and triplet branchlets of new growth on each of last year's top radiating branches. Triplet lateral growth on the radiating branches of the uppermost level signifies a very healthy specimen! On a scale in which "Celia" specimen is rated by Lee Barnes as a 10, this specimen is a 7.
LEFT (18 May 2012): Kokopelli was double-stemmed when planted, but has since adjusted to a single healthy main stem, plus one small basal coppice.
ABOVE (18 May 2012): Christmas fern is a healthy indicator species (to the right of the poster).
ABOVE (25 April 2013): In 2013 we began counting leaf buds for the first time on each seedling. Kokopelli had just 14 leaf buds on the main stem and 4 leaf buds on its single ancillary basal stem. Notice in the photo above right that the top of the main stem shows just 3 lateral leaf buds this year — and there will be no apical vertical growth at all this year, it seems.
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