CALIFORNIA NATIVE PLANT SOCIETY TREE STUDY KIT

CALIFORNIA TORREYA (also called California Nutmeg)

• California torreya is in the yew family. (It got its name because the inner seed looks like a nutmeg but it has no relationship to the tree which bears the seed used for the spice nutmeg which is in the family Myristicaceae.)
• They can grow 60 feet tall.
  
• It is unusual for a conifer (tree with needles) to have a seed like this instead of a cone.
• If children have the opportunity to touch a nutmeg leaf they will feel SHARP spines at the tips of the needles.
• Native Americans used them for tattooing. A design was drawn on the face with poison oak juice and then soot was pricked in with nutmeg needles resulting in a blue-green tattoo.