u/Milana_OBrennan

I'll cut right to the chase with this one. My name is Milana. Also known as Milana O'Brennan, as I am from the land of the Brennan family in the Eastern USA. I am involved with a group that has been getting deep in to the horticultural and ethnobotanical wonders of the Eastern Woodlands region of the USA and Canada. We mainly use the iNaturalist app to help them with their scientific advancements. We are doing this because of our cultural beliefs and values. In my family and my community, us Qarsherskiyan folks are a big fan of Connie Barlow. Please consider subscribing to her YouTube channel Ghostsofevolution. If you think her name sounds familiar, she's one of the founders of the Torreya Guardians. Two rare and critically endangered species of conifer from Florida, the Florida Yew (Taxus floridana) and the Florida Torreya (Torreya taxifolia), grow side-by-side in a small and restricted habitat range in the ravines along a several mile stretch of the Appalachicola River's Eastern bluffs right alone the Florida and Georgia border around and South of Lake Seminole. Florida Yew is struggling due to warming conditions every years in the ravines. Look, I'm not here to argue about climate change, okay, but those ravines are getting warmer and that at least can't be denied, no matter if you believe humans are responsible for it or not. The Florida Torreya is even worse off, however, as a fungal pathogen has been killing it off for nearly 100 years, and especially the past 60 years. It hasn't been producing seeds at all for decades. Only in cultivation, mainly further North.

The Atlanta Botanical Gardens has argued that the Florida Torreya trees shouldn't be planted outside their small and restricted native range, as tests of sites across their range revealed "all seeds carry the fungal pathogen within them." Other species of native conifers found in the Appalachian region and areas across the Eastern USA are believed to be susceptible to the disease. The thing is, whenever they're planted in Michigan and Ohio, Florida Torreya does exceptionally well, and given a decade to mature, produces cones and bears fertile offspring successfully. While those in North Carolina and Tennessee are found to contain the fungi, they are asymptomatic and don't die off and are reproducing seeds.

The belief that most of the horticulturally inclined amongst my people have is that of the Torreya Guardians and Connie Barlow, that the fungi isn't a foreign invader, but a symbotic fungi that lives in association with Florida Torreya trees, as it's never been found elsewhere except where Florida Torreya trees are. It is common for climate change or changing weather patterns or whatever you wish to call it to cause these beneficial fungi to suddenly become pathogens. Our belief is that it only harms the trees when the trees are already stressed, and the trees are stressed due to the warming conditions, and the cold temperatures further North are a control that keeps the fungi in check. We believe that like all other plants are currently doing, Florida Torreya must shift it's native range further North, becoming naturalized in the higher elevations of Southern Appalachia and in the valleys and lower elevations of the mountains further North in the Appalachian Mountain chain and along the New England coast and in the Great Lakes and Midwestern states.

The series Helping Forests Walk was named by a Lakota Indigenous / Native American elder and is a good series on Connie's YouTube channel. You could listen for hours to understand why the theories many of my people hold are correct. Me and a few other individuals from my community have made it our mission to fight the most honorable struggle to save Florida Torreya, but seed genetic diversity is limited. The Atlanta Botanical Gardens is refusing to give seeds or plant material because of unfounded fears of the fungi epidemic, although trees planted further North in Appalachia are asymptomatic and trees in the Great Lakes area might not even be infected, with one tree in an orchard planted in Cleveland, Ohio producing hundreds of seeds. Many of the big institutions and groups like the Atlanta Botanical Gardens are fighting against the efforts of the Torreya Guardians and the Qarsherskiyan Naturalist Projects and other groups and the Torreya Keepers group hasn't been the same as they got new funding for FEMA to hire new people and got a new leader and now they're fighting to keep Florida Torreya confined to it's limited range where it simply cannot survive.

And don't forget the Florida Yew. We have two rare conifers imperiled. Don't let millions of years of evolution come to a dead end now! What are you waiting for? Do you own land? Join the fight. Contact the Torreya Guardians and ask to collaborate with them. Germinate some seeds and grow some trees on your lands. I don't know where else to post this. Please don't let my cries for help fall on deaf ears. There is a powerful group of people I won't name who are about to close the doors of opportunity to ship these trees across state lines with new legal actions. They will fight our efforts soon, but they aren't yet and it's still legal. Hurry and get your dog in the fight!