and leaf blight, and possibly other problems. The decline has affected all wild Florida torreya trees (Godfrey and Kurz 1962) and possibly all cultivated trees" (page 2). The recovery plan put environmental deterioration into the context of the geological timescale of climate change:"The basic limiting factor of Florida torreya is its restricted geographic range and habitat, rendering the species vulnerable to human disturbance of its habitat and to natural factors, such as climate change, which are likely to be felt by all of the populations.... The decline has been so great that few if any seed-bearing trees exist in the wild, making recovery of the populations through natural sexual reproduction impossible" (page 5). "It is possible that relatively minor human alterations of the habitat may seriously affect torreya; it is possible that the present-day physical environment of the Apalachicola bluffs and ravines is only marginally suitable to Florida torreya. The species may be restricted to the area because it failed to migrate northward at the end of the Pleistocene" (page 6). Noting that torreya "appears to occupy sites where a steady supply of moisture is available from seepage, and where it is shady in the summer" (page 6), the plan then offered possible human factors that may have deteriorated those habitat conditions. "Alteration of the pine forests on uplands above the ravines" was one possible factor. Logging within the ravines was also noted. Ravine temperatures could have been affected by "construction of the Jim Woodruff Dam, completed in 1956." The Jim Woodruff Dam was one human alteration in the landscape for which quantitative data was available and could be assessed. Mark W. Schwartz would be the scientist to make that evaluation. But first, he would join with Rob Nicholson of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum, to undertake the "first objective" of the federal recovery plan: to gather cuttings from the remaining wild specimens in the native range in order "to produce a genetically diverse collection of sexually mature, reasonably healthy trees in cultivation to preserve a representative gene pool to serve as stock for possible reintroduction into the native habitat" — which itself would begin only "when there is reason to believe that the trees would survive to maturity" (page 8). With more than 2,000 branchlets cut from the wild and being rooted in facilities at Arnold Arboretum and other institutions, Mark Schwartz joined with Sharon M Hermann in the field to