FLORIDA TORREYA
(Torreya taxifolia)

The Torreya is a small tree threatened with extinction due to its restricted range and a fungus blight which has decimated natural stands since the early 1960s. Because of its rarity, the Torreya receives protection under Florida's Endangered Plants Law.
The tree was named for 19th century botanist John Torrey. Its natural range was a 60-mile long strip of bluffs and ravines

along the Apalachicola River in north Florida and south Georgia. Mature trees there have been killed by blight and regeneration of small specimens is from old roots. Florida is attempting to reestablish them in Torreya State Park north of Bristol.
The Torreya usually is less than 40 feet high and under 10 inches in diameter. The fruit is berrylike, consisting of a pulpy bluish outer coat over a single seed.
The leaves are stiff needles about 1 1/2 inches long and an eighth-inch wide, dark green and shiny on top and paler below. They grow in two rows on opposite sides of the twig. The crushed foliage has a characteristic odor resembling that of tomato leaves and the yellowish, durable wood (when enough existed to be worked) emitted a pungent odor which many found objectionable. The two kinds of scent account for one of the Torreya's many common names, stinking cedar. The flowers open in March and the fruit matures in the fall.

FLORIDA YEW
(Taxus floridana)
The Florida Yew, one of the world's rarest trees, occurs naturally only in a small area of bluffs and ravines on the east bank of the Apalachicola River in northern Florida. Its entire population is thought to be numbered in dozens, or hundreds at the most optimistic estimate. It is a close relative of the Florida Torreya; both share the same range. both are on the Endangered Plants list protected by Florida law and both receive some additional Protection in the Torreya State Park, established by the state north of Bristol partly to serve as a refuge for the rare pair.
The Yew is a small tree, rarely higher than 25 feet and more commonly 15 feet. Its trunk is short and slender, with numerous spreading branches which gives the tree a shrubby appearance. It closely resembles the Torreya in general appearance, but its foliage is softer and lacks the characteristic odor of crushed tomato leaves which the Torreya has. The fruit is about one-third an inch long, with a pulpy covering enclosing all but the end of the single seed. Flowers appear in March and the fruit ripens in October.
The Yew's leaves are curved, dark green above and pale below. They are nearly an inch in length and about one-sixteenth an inch in width, growing in two rows along opposite sides of the twigs. The wood is reddish brown.

FLORIDA THATCHPALM
(Thrinax parviflora)
THE lower or earlier forms of the true flowering trees include the palms. Of the twelve species of tree palms native in the United States, ten occur in Florida and two in Califonlia.
Thatch is found on the hammocks and sandy shores along the southern end of the Peninsula, scattered from Dade County to north of Cape Sable. Its principal home is in Cuba and some smaller islands near Honduras. It is one of the unarmed palms. In Florida, it becomes a tree up to 25 teet in height with a smooth pale trunk three to four feet in diameter.
The leaves are fan-shaped, two to three feet in diameter, rounded in outline, yellow-green in color, shiny above, with leave stalks from two to four feet long, smooth or without marginal spines, and much thickened at the bases. They are clustered at the top of the tree trunk. The flowers are very small, and in compound clusters from two to four feet long. The fruit is a white "stone fruit," one-quarter to three-eighths inch in diameter, rounded, and contains a thin-shelled dark brown seed or nut.
The wood is brown in color, the outer portion hard but the inner portion softer.

CABBAGE PALMETTO (Cabbage Palm, or
Cabbage Tree)
(Sabal palmetto)

THIS member of the palm family is named from the large leaf-bud or "cabbage" at the top of the trunk, which is cooked and eaten as a vegetable. The loss of the bud causes a branching, if not the death of the tree. Like the lilies, grasses, and corn, the palms grow upward from a single terminal bud, and grow outward from many bundles of tissue located centrally within
the trunk. This is unlike the growth of the pines, gums, oaks, and many other trees which yearly form a ring of wood.

The cabbage palmetto is a tree from 50 feet to 80 feet, with a straight clear trunk up to two feet in diameter, covered with shallow ridges and fissures. It grows in sandy soil or hammocks over most of the coast region, including the Keys, west to the Apalachicola River.

The leaves are from five to eight feet long, usually broader than long, dark green, shiny, deeply divided into narrow portions, and borne on leaf-stems from five to seven feet long. The stem of the tree is covered with a thick rind and marked in rings where the old sets of leaves have fallen off. The fruit consists of many rounded berries, about one-third inch in diameter, each containing a brownish colored seed.

The wood is light, soft, pale brown, containing numerous hard fibres or "threads." The trunks are used for piling and sawed into disks for ornamental table tops. Baskets, mats and hats are made from the leaves, and brushes from the fibres in the sheaths of the young leaves and trunk.

FLORIDA ROYAL PALM
(Roystonea elata)

The Florida royal palm is among the largest of the native palms of the state, reaching heights of up to 100 feet and trunk diameters of two feet. The trunks are particularly distinctive, appearing to be made of concrete, large at the base, uniformly cylindrical along the lower two-thirds of the length and ending with the upper 8-10 feet enclosed in green sheath-like leaf bases.

The leaves of the Florida royal are massive, being up to 12 feet long, weighing possibly 25 pounds.

Leaflets are numerous along the leaf stalks. strap-shaped, and narrowing at the tips.

Flowers appear in spring and are white, about one-fourth of an inch in diameter, and formed in dense clusters about two feet long with a single stout branch supporting the entire cluster.

Fruits mature in late summer when they turn violet-blue. Each fruit is about half an inch long, oval shaped and contains a solitary seed surrounded by fibers.

The Florida royal should be distinsuished from the Cuban royal (Roystonea regia) which is probably more prevalent in landscaping. Although the two species have probably hybridized, the true Florida royal is thought to have a more cylindrical trunk, without the mid-section bulge found in the Cuban royal. In its native state, the Florida species seems mostly limited to the rich moist hammocks of Dade, Monroe and Collier counties.

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