United States / Grow / Florida nutmeg

Florida nutmeg (Torreya taxifolia)
Photo: (c) Abby Darrah, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

Florida nutmeg

Torreya taxifolia · Taxaceae · all Torreya records · also called Florida torreya · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Torreya taxifolia carries an avoid recommendation in this record's evidence. The sourced conclusion remains attached to Florida torreya and is the leading selected fact for this record.

Two hardiness assertions add the climate context, with separate citations under hardiness evidence. The pack itself remains limited evidence, as shown by the accepted source rows. The climate claims retain distinct provenance.

Same-form alternatives are documented under related plants. They provide comparison choices while leaving the avoid recommendation, both hardiness claims, and limited source depth with this species record within the accepted pack.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Form
tree
Mature height
~8 ft
Light
Full sun
Water need
moderate
Rated in
Global; eastern US
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Highly flammable — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
Global; eastern US

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in DC, DE, FL, GA, MD, NJ, OH, PA, WV.
Native range
Current cited native range in FL, GA.
USDA hardiness
Documented minimum 8a; no upper limit is documented.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

2

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

2 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Florida (FL)
  • Georgia (GA)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Avoids (1)

Listed without a rating (4)
Corroboration (4 rows from 1 source)
  • FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

    4 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.

    • Primary study Mola2014: Mola, J. M., Varner, J. M., Jules, E. S., & Spector, T. (2014). Altered Community Flammability in Florida's Apalachicola Ravines and Implications for the Persistence of the Endangered Conifer Torreya taxifolia. Plos One, 9, 8.

      Shared row context: plant part litter; fuel all; predrying no; device burning bench; site Mola2014-1; sampling may and june.

      • “flame height (cm): 26.2”

        FLAMITS record 9238; Combustibility measurement.

      • “flaming duration (s): 155.4”

        FLAMITS record 9255; Sustainability measurement.

      • “burnt biomass (%): 99.56”

        FLAMITS record 9272; Consumability measurement.

      • “time to smouldering (s): 128.2”

        FLAMITS record 9289; Ignitability measurement.

Fire-resistant trees instead

Fire-resistant trees listed above

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

Profiles: USDA PLANTS · GBIF · iNaturalist · Wikidata · Wikipedia · ITIS

Torreya taxifolia (Florida torreya). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/torreya-taxifolia/. Last verified 2026-08-23.