
Torreya
Sign in to saveTorreya is a genus of conifers comprising six or seven species placed in the family Taxaceae, though sometimes formerly placed in Cephalotaxaceae. Four species are native to eastern Asia; the other two are native to North America. They are small to medium-sized evergreen trees reaching 5–20 m, rarely 25 m, tall. Common names include nutmeg yew.
Species
Genus
- PhylumTracheophyta
- ClassPinopsida
- OrderCupressales
- FamilyTaxaceae
General: Torreya taxifolia is rated as Critically Endangered (CR Common Name: Florida torreya
via · Kew POWO
Museum specimens
- Specimen records
- 114
- With media
- 46
- Family
- Taxaceae
- Collections
- UCMP, NY, US, UOMNH, MO, UF
- Recorded in
- United States, China, Turkey
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- taxon
- Parent taxon
- Taxaceae
- Named after
- John Torrey
- Image
- Torreya-californica.JPG
Show 8 more facts
- start time
- 45000000-0
- taxonomic type
- Torreya taxifolia
- Commons category
- Torreya
- taxon rank
- genus
- taxon name
- Torreya
- topic's main category
- Category:Torreya
- taxon common name
- 榧树属
Sources (2)
via Wikidata · CC0
~6 min read
Encyclopedic overview
4 sectionsContents
- Fossil record
- Adaptive growth forms of this subcanopy genus
- Species
- References
Torreya is a genus of conifers comprising six or seven species placed in the family Taxaceae, though sometimes formerly placed in Cephalotaxaceae. Four species are native to eastern Asia; the other two are native to North America. They are small to medium-sized evergreen trees reaching 5–20 m, rarely 25 m, tall. Common names include nutmeg yew.
The genus is one example of the Arcto-Tertiary Geoflora in paleoecology. The pattern of highly disjunct distribution of geographic ranges of the species within such a genus spans temperate plant zones of continents in the Northern Hemisphere. This geographic pattern is attributed to genus origins in much warmer times of the Tertiary Period, when zones of temperate climate were found in poleward latitudes whereby land connections facilitated range expansions and migrations of plants between Asia and North America and sometimes between Europe and North America.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Torreya” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.