ghostsofevolution's video: Seeds of Florida Torreya Produced in Ohio

Fred Bess in Cleveland Ohio set the record in 2017 for the farthest north production of Torreya taxifolia seeds ever documented. When Connie Barlow visited him a year later, she filmed seed production that had expanded 3 or 4-fold. In this short video, viewers will also learn that: 1. Torreya seeds are only produced when a plant gets a lot of sun — and then only on the sunniest side of the tree. 2. When a potted seedling from the south is out-planted far to the north, its leaves will at first die on the winter windiest side of the tree. But new growth will acclimatize to the cold (each evergreen leaf usually stays on the tree, photosynthesizing, for 5 or even 7 years). 3. Branchlets that are winter-killed will offer a flush of new branchlets in a ring at the base of the dead twig, thus making the tree even more leafy and compact. 4. Because a young Torreya tree is a very prickly evergreen plant, it will be the favored outlet for buck deer scraping velvet off antlers in the fall; so fencing (or stacks of surrounding brush) are crucial in the fall where deer are populous. 5. Fred's experience suggests that a few seeds will sprout after their first winter. Most will sprout after their second winter. None sprout after that. (However, other Torreya Guardians experimenting with "free-planting" seeds directly into the wild are finding that planting seeds as deep as 6 inches is an excellent way to deter rodent predation, but may delay the appearance of above-ground growth.) Access the full VIDEO series of "Torreya taxifolia assisted migration" at: http://www.torreyaguardians.org/video.html