Nut-bearing Torreya
Torreya nucifera · Taxaceae · 비자나무
How to spot it
Similar to yew, but the fleshy seed coat fully surrounds the seed, and the upper surface of the leaf does not protrude.
Look
- Leaves
- Linear, pointed, hairless, arranged like feathers. They are 14.2 to 29.4 mm long and 2.7 to 3.9 mm wide, dark green above with two fine stomatal lines below; the leaf stalk is about 3 mm, and leaves fall after 6 to 7 years.
- Flowers
- (Cone flowers) appear in April. Male cone flowers are egg-round, about 10 mm long, with about 10 brown bracts; female cone flowers are irregular egg-shaped, about 6 mm long, wrapped in 5 to 6 green bracts.
- Fruit
- Cones are obovate or elliptic, stalkless, 25 to 28 mm long, drupe-like and completely wrapped in a thin fleshy seed coat about 3 mm thick. The seed is elliptic with narrowed ends, about 23 mm long, dark brown with a hard shell, and ripens in September to October of the following year.
- Bark
- Gray-brown bark that on old trees cracks shallowly and falls off.
Where it grows
- In Korea
- Native (Korean Peninsula)
- Native to
- Found in Korea (Jeonbuk, Jeonnam, Jeju) and Japan (south of central Honshu).