while exposing others to injurious levels of sunlight and heat. Vulnerabilities of restricted range size The focus of concern for the future of Torreya taxifolia has shifted through time. The exceptionally small scale of its native range, however, has always been a primary concern. Restricted range and human overuse were named as primary threats by Harvard botanist Asa Gray in the report of his self-described "pilgrimage" to the species in the spring of 1875. Fresh seedlings and the species' propensity to regrow new stems from the same rootstock were noted by him as a hedge against extinction: "Seedlings and young trees are not uncommon, and some old stumps were sprouting from the base, in the manner of Californian Redwood. So this species may be expected to endure, unless these bluffs should be wantonly deforested — against which their distance from the river and the steepness of the ground offer some protection. But any species of very restricted range may be said to hold its existence by a precarious tenure." A. W. Chapman in 1885 pointed to human overharvesting "for posts, shingles, and other exposed constructions" of the extremely durable wood as the primary threat. In the 1830s big trees had been so abundant that their trunks were sawn into planks and used to construct the village of Aspalaga Landing. As a new century began, there was still no mention of Torreya taxifolia decline by any threat other than humanity. Its relictual character still evoked strong interest. In a 1904 conference contribution, University of Chicago botanist Henry C. Cowles wrote,"In these ravines, and especially on the northward-facing slopes, is to be found a mesophytic association of plants that is abundant far to the north, but which reaches its southern limit here.... It seems likely, then, that we should regard Torreya taxifolia as a northern mesophytic left stranded today only in Florida. It presumably is one of the plants that failed to follow up the last retreat of the Pleistocene ice, and is preserved here perhaps because of exceptionally favorable topographic conditions." October 2018 brought a reminder of the inherent risks of an endangered plant endemic to only a very small range. As reported June 2019 in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper, in the spring of 2018 Atlanta Botanical Garden transplanted 700 Torreya taxifolia trees to Torreya State Park in Florida, "with noted Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson, 88, as a guest of