Landscape Plants

A genus of conifers composed of six or seven species.  Four species are native to eastern Asia and two are native to North America, Torreya californica and Torreya taxifolia. The trees of the genus are evergreen, small to medium-sized, reaching 5–20 m, rarely 25 m, tall. The leaves are spirally arranged on the shoots, but twisted at the base to lie in two flat ranks; they are linear, 2–8 cm long and 3–4 mm broad, hard in texture, with a sharp spine tip. Torreya can be either monoecious or dioecious; when monoecious, the male and female cones are often on different branches.

Torreya: after John Torrey (1796-1873) American botanist