Torreya taxifolia, commonly known as Florida torreya or stinking-cedar, but also sometimes as Florida nutmeg or gopher wood, is an endangered subcanopy tree of the yew family, Taxaceae. It is native to only a small glacial refugium in the southeastern United States, at the state border region of northern Florida and southwestern Georgia. Species discovery In 1821 colonial control of the Florida Territory shifted from Spain to the United States. Plantation owners and their slaves began to move into the territory, exacerbating conflicts with the native peoples and the existing population of runaway slaves. One such plantation owner was the patriarch of the Croom family, who in 1826 purchased land around the town of Tallahassee. When he died in 1829, his two sons inherited and invested further in the region, buying up or leasing other plantations. One of the two sons was Hardy Bryan Croom. Croom had studied law and became a state senator in North Carolina in his early thirties, but he also devoted time to exploring the sciences. Among other scientific interests, he described himself as fond of botany. He assembled a small personal herbarium and authored a monograph on the carnivorous plant genus Sarracenia. While exploring along the east side of the Apalachicola River, Croom noted that the flora was quite different from elsewhere in the Tallahassee region. Beginning in 1833 he sent dried specimens to herbaria in the north, including that of another glacial relict woody plant found in the same, limited area. That plant is now known as Florida yew, Taxus floridana, and it is also critically endangered. In 1834 Croom initiated correspondence with the botanist John Torrey. Torrey carried forward studies of the species that would eventually carry his name after the tragic death at sea not only of Croom but also of his wife and children. Their shipwreck occurred during a hurricane in 1837, off the coast of North Carolina. Taxonomy and naming In 1838 this novel species was described by George Arnott Walker-Arnott from specimens sent to John Torrey and collected in Florida by Hardy Bryan Croom. Arnott commemorated Torrey in the generic epithet. The etymology of the specific epithet is from Latin taxus, meaning 'yew', and folium, meaning 'leaf': i.e., 'yew-leaved'. Other species of Torreya have longer, less yew-like leaves, but this is not the reason that it was given this name, as the other species were described after this one.