Chinese torreya

Photo: Fumikas Sagisavas — CC0 · source

Survives zone 7 through 9

Harvest calendar

Ripens: Seed ripens in October, in the autumn of the SECOND year after flowering

Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.

The seed, sold in China as xiangfei or 'fei nuts', is roasted and eaten as a delicacy with a rich, nutty flavor, and its oil is pressed separately for cooking — a genuine, centuries-old commercial nut crop rather than a foraging curiosity. Some individual cultivated trees in China have been harvested for over 1,000 years, among the longest-lived nut trees anywhere. Like the rest of the genus, the seed takes two full years to mature after pollination, so a bearing tree carries two overlapping generations of developing seed. Grafted cultivars fruit in 5–8 years; seed-grown trees can take 15–20 years or more.

Hardiness

Zone 7–9

Habit

Tree

Edible part

Seed

Ripens

Seed ripens in October, in the autumn of the SECOND year after flowering

Mature size

Large, slow-growing tree, typically 15–25 m tall (exceptional wild trees to 39 m)

Light

Full sun to part shade

Soil pH

Mildly acid to mildly alkaline; tolerates a wide range of soil textures

Environment

Warm to cool temperate; mixed mesophytic forest, often streamside

Native range

Central and eastern China — Anhui, Fujian, Guizhou, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi and Zhejiang provinces — angiosperm-dominated forest at 200–1,400 m, typically in riparian sites.

Status

Both wild and cultivated

Growth speed

Slow

Spacing

600 cm (236 in) apart — about 36 m² (388 sq ft) per plant

Leaf shape

Stiff, glossy dark green needles in two flat ranks, sharply pointed

Fruit description

An olive-like, single-seeded drupe with a thin fleshy outer covering that is peeled away before the hard-shelled seed inside is roasted

Propagation

Fresh seed needing 18 months or more of cold stratification to germinate; commercial trees are usually grafted onto seedling rootstock to reach bearing age far sooner

Pollination

Wind-pollinated; dioecious — needs a male and female plant to set seed

The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.