Conifer Trees Database

Description. Chinese nutmeg-yew is an evergreen coniferous species of tree that will grow to mature heights of 80 feet (25 m) tall, with a dense crown, becoming broadly conical to domed and irregular with age.

• Branches are spreading and ascending, with paired, slender, spreading, or drooping branchlets, which turn from green, to yellowish green, to grayish brown after a year.
• Terminal foliar buds are quite small.
• The stiff, leathery, drooping leaves are glossy dark green in color. The flat, sharply pointed leaves measure 0.4 to 1.8 inches (1 - 4.5 cm) long. The twin stomatal bands on the undersides are light brown and less than 0.04 inches (1 mm) wide.
• The pollen cones, borne solitary in the leaf axils, form short rows under the leaves and measure 0.2 to 0.32 inch (5 - 8 mm) long and 0.18 to 0.2 inches (4.5 - 5 mm) wide.
• The seed cones are borne solitary, paired, or clustered together. They are of globose shape, measuring 0.8 to 1.6 inches (20 - 40 mm) long and 0.5 inches (12 mm) wide. they have a fleshy, pale purplish brown aril.

Distribution. This species is native to eastern and central China - Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, south Shaanxi, Sichuan, and Zhejiang provinces where it grows in temperate forest settings, at elevations of 650 to 4,600 feet (200 - 1,400 m) above sea level.

Hardy to UDSA Zone 8 - cold hardiness limit between 10° and 20°F (-12.1° and -6.7°C).

Torreya grandis is an excellent timber tree and has been cultivated in China for centuries for its edible seeds (locally called xiangfei) and the medical and culinary oil from its arils (feishu). Culinary cultivars have been developed for those purposes and in some cases, they are cultivated like fruit trees.

HORTICULTURAL STATUS:RHS Registered

COLOR:Dark Green

GROWTH SHAPE:Broad Upright or Oval

GROWTH SIZE:Large: greater than 12 inches (30 cm) per year / greater than 12 feet (4 m) after 10 years

ORIGIN:(unknown)