honor. Then, Hurricane Michael destroyed the entire stand, dumping hardwoods on top of little saplings." The die-off begins Sometime between 1938 and 1962 it became clear that not only harvesting was reducing the remaining torreya trees to thin, resprouting stems. There was strong evidence of one or more above-ground pathogens that killed virtually all replacement stems not long after they had emerged from still-healthy rootstock. In a 1967 paper titled, "Stem and Needle Blight of Florida Torreya," a team of Florida plant pathologists described a "fungus disease contributing to a progressive state of decline which threatens the existence of the species both in its natural habitat and wherever it is grown." The team, led by S.A. Alfieri, included in their report a concise history of the unresolved nature of disease discovery and the speed of its spread. Alfieri et al. presented that the first person to notice that Torreya taxifolia trees were dying in their wild habitat was an extension service forester in northern Florida, Lewis T. Nieland. He made his observation in 1938, but he did not write a formal paper about it. In that same year, Herman Kurz made a detailed study of torreya ecology, yet he remarked that there was no danger of the species vanishing from its habitat, so long as the human taking of stems could be kept in check. In 1954 Kurz and Robert K. Godfrey surveyed the population and noticed no evidence of decline by any stem-killing pathogen. Eight years later, Kurz and Godfrey surveyed the species again — and reversed their conclusion. Their 1962 report, published as a "Letter" in the journal Science, offered a dire prediction: "Its extinction is well-nigh an accomplished fact." What they saw instead of healthy groves were "skeleton trunks, a few of which have abortive sprouts at their bases." As to the identity of the pathogen, they suggested, "apparently a fungal disease of the stems. We know nothing more than that." The role of pathogens in the die-off The 1967 article by S. A. Alfieri Jr. et al, as summarized in the previous section, became a turning point in conservation concern for Florida torreya. Henceforth, conservation initiatives focused on determining why disease had killed virtually all the older stems, the identities of the disease agent (or agents), and how to proceed with species rehabilitation. Alfieri, with additional colleagues, continued studies of Torreya pathogens well into the 1980s.