Beautiful! Rare as hen's teeth I supose.

Nice specimen Jujujojo always good to see these
rare species.

Nice! Where were the photos taken, please?

Resin

First pic looks like a conifer masquerading as bamboo.

Sadly jujujojo has never been big on the specifics...we can assume somewhere in China.
I've been dying to get this plant since someone posted a picture a while ago. Hopefully it will be in the trade soon. Resembles South African Podocarpus henkelii, which may be one of the most beautiful conifers of all.

Thanks jujujojo. My understanding is that endangered plants can be sold within one country if they are nursery grown in that country and the nursery is licensed, according to CITES laws. Of course, I could be wrong.
I know some people like the Cox arboretum in Atlanta already have the plant in their possession, so maybe in a few years cuttings will be distributed.
If it's a low(er) elevation species, zone 6 would be quite far north in China, up around Beijing and beyond. More likely it occurs in zn 8-9 areas and like so many plants is (hopefully) a bit hardier than its native range. Where Metasequoia was discovered could not possibly be colder than zn 7 yet the plants are zn 5 hardy. It was a bit colder in the last ice age, of course, even though the Siberian high pressure system kept China freer of ice than would be expected...just as it keeps winters there relatively mild and/or stable now. At least compared to North America.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Sep 17, 13 at 19:36

Posted by davidrt28 7 (My Page) on Tue, Sep 17, 13 at 19:30

Do you know if they grow well in Atlanta? I heard small plants of these need fifteen or more years to start producing seed, and the seeds take several years to mature. These trees regenerate slowly.

I thought only ferns have fertile and infertile leaves. Obviously, these also have these. Hmm.

T jackii grows on lower elevation of mountains, so I am guessing they should be easier to grow in cities, no? Perhaps they are not as cold hardy but I think they should be ok in zone 7.

In the US, there is a Torreya from Florida that is critically endangered. I heard those are been moved up north to the Appalachian mountains in North Carolina. How interesting?

Anyone know how long seed of Torreya jackii takes
to germinate?

Posted by blue_yew Z9 swe (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 12:32

Hi blue yew, I went to research your question. Here are what the books say:

The matured seeds should immediately go through cold process in winter. The coldest temperature of their natural range is -10 Celsius or 14 Fahrenheit .

They should germinate the second year. However, the germination rate observed so far is only 0.5% to 1%. That is one in 100 to 200 seeds :) So, I am guessing this is an unsuccessful method :) Oh, boy.

See here on Florida torreya:

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr338

Nobody is moving the species, but cultivated plants are being grown in NC and TN. Disease is the main problem..which I have wondered about for the Asian species.

T. jackii is in cultivation here sparingly, and it should do well in zone 8 and 9 in the SE US.

Posted by salicaceae z8b FL (My Page) on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 21:25

Thank you very much for your link. That is wonderful! I hope Florida torreya could thrive in the Appalachian mountain. It is very beautiful there! I am imagining that they might also be grafted onto disease resistant root-stock. The Asian Torreya species' are disease resistant. T. grandis is widely cultivated for its nuts which has become an industry. T. Jackii and fargessi become endangered due to excessive logging, and massive reduction of habitat. Somehow, their known distribution are very narrow and limited.

For the nut industry of Torreya grandis, the trees are highly profitable. For trees 400 to 500 years old, each tree generates a profit of roughly $900 anuually. For trees close to 1000 years old, each tree generates a profit of roughly $1,200 annually. It takes 3 years for them to produce a nut from a flower.

This post was edited by jujujojo on Wed, Sep 18, 13 at 22:29

My Torreya fargesii still very rare in cultivation

{{gwi:633440}}

Posted by blue_yew Z9 swe (My Page) on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 4:53

That is very impressive. Are you sure that it is? How old is it?

This post was edited by jujujojo on Thu, Sep 19, 13 at 9:32

Yes its the true species as the needles have a ridge on the upper surface Its a few years old.

blue_yew(Z9 Devon UK) , is there any update?

Apropos some of the earlier remarks, here is a hardiness zone map for China, which I find interesting to compare with the US. The overall distributions for both countries look so similar yet are different in subtle ways. It seems that winters are slightly colder there in most places than at comparable latitudes in the US, but China has a bigger subtropical region. The northernmost and southernmost parts are to the north and south of the corresponding extremes for the lower 48 states of the US, respectively. Another big difference is they don't have a maritime climate zone like the Pacific NW.

Jujujojo---Torreya jackii grows in the SE of China--you must be in a province like Fujian, Zhejiang or Jiangxi.

https://www.richters.com/show.cgi?page=Zones/China.html

grizzlysean_z9b , that zone map is not very suitable for China, because China has many mountains, all over the place. There is zone 5 (cold) in the alleged subtropical zones of China. The US is very flat (great for agriculture), therefore the US zone map is accurate.

I would just point out that the US is also pretty mountainous in much of the West, but it's true that southern China--where the greatest diversity in conifers is located---is, on the whole, hilly/mountainous and pretty geographically different from the corresponding regions of the US. The distribution of precipitation over the course of the year is very different between the two countries, too--being much more evenly distributed in the US, whereas large parts of eastern China seem to be pretty consistently rainy/overcast in the summer and very dry in winter.

Yes as I've pointed out on other threads (just google my name "davidrt28" + "Siberian HIgh") the geography of Asia means that China has more stable winters w/fewer up & down changes in temperature. There are places with climates similar to Atlanta, but they are 9b or 10a and not 7b or 8a.

davidrt28 (zone 7), I believe Atlanta city is 9 due to the heat island effect of a big city.

Ummm...no.
Phoenix canariensis is a zn 9 indicator plant in a humid climate and they would have been dead as a doornail anywhere near Atlanta in the past 2 winters.
You are right that the higher elevations of southern China are colder than the low elevation cities, but still not as cold as equivalent areas in the USA would be. Take for example Chisos Mountain base station which hit 0F/-18C in the 2011 freeze, versus Xichang China...which is clearly milder in spite of being further from an ocean. They are roughly similar latitudes and elevations. The overall topography of Asia and aforementioned Siberian high means milder or more stable winters from the various "-stans" over to Japan namely along and south of the route of the former Silk Road. North of this, of course, there is more consistent cold than our hemisphere. Not that it matters to most of us, but Alberta, Canada is "milder" (LOL) than equivalent areas in Siberia. Slightly at least.

The tricky part is you also have to compare averages to extremes, and not just latitudes and elevations. The average temps of winters in southern China are cooler, but the extremes are far less extreme than the US. The average coolness of Atlanta, in China, is found closer to the latitude of north Florida. Chengdu China, record low: 22F, Tallahassee, FL, -2F! But the latter would seem much warmer to the average random winter visitor. (and actually, even if you compare Siberia to Canada, the cold in Siberia is at least less capriciously changeable)

Gentlemen,

Many years ago Debreczy & Racz collected Torreya jackii in China. Now there are 2 big exemplars in Hungary, living in Z6.

Zsolt

Thank you Zsolt. That is incredibly exciting news for me. This was already the top conifer on my list of sought-after plants, but probably just moved up a few spaces on the overall list.

davidrt28 (zone 7), if mesterhazypinetum(6)'s information is accurate, how do you explain it?

As I always explain such things...Dawn Redwood is currently in a zn 8/7 area of China but why is it 5b hardy? Probably it once extended into colder areas of China...*and* China would have been colder during the latest ice age. (But again, not as cold or as glacier covered as North America.) Most temperate and many subtropical plants are hardier than their current native range suggests they "need" to be.

We are lucky it was the plains and valleys of China that were cleared thousands of years ago, and not the mountains.

Jujo & dave,

i guess its possible without problems.

My source is Debreczy&Racz in Taiwan. They collected there not only for their herbarium, but for fresh propagations. The plants from above 3000 meters in Taiwan are hardy in z6 Hungary. Just take a look to the conifertreasury.org Taiwania, there is a living copy in the Budapest Uni Bot Gard.

The other idea, that a conifer may remember to colder or warmer regions, semms to work. Many mexican conifers are hardy in Europe, which were moving in the last 10 million years between north and south. By this way anyone of you may select midamerican Pines back to colder areas.

Zsolt

The same happened20 years ago with the Tracycarpus fortunei. Hungarian gardeners collected ten thousands of seeds in the croatian seeshore. They were sawn in open area, and the winter was survived by some exemplars. They are standing now in different Bot Gards in Budapest giving hardy seeds. They are proof up to -20 (defending the palm hearts).

The same story is the Cedrus libani. If you collect seeds in the seashore, you get a z9 plant, if you collect above 1500 m, its hardy up to -35 and z5. We made this game in Hungary in the last decades. We have a superhardy Cedrus libani ready. Study please conifertreasury.org Cedrus libani. You will be surprised.

Zsolt

mesterhazypinetum, I think Tracycarpus fortunei is unusually cold hardy. They grow outdoors in the South side of some houses in New York city.

Well, again, not after the last two winters they don't.

Hi blue yew, I just join the group and I go through some of your older posts. I came across the photo of your interesting Torreya fargesii Would you have the source of your specimen?