Northwest Florida Getaways 2008 - (Page 18) parks TORREYA by Terry Tomalin Torreya Florida’s Garden of Eden View of the river. S tanding on the bluffs overlooking the Apalachicola River as it winds through the red-, yellow- and orange-leafed forests below, it’s easy to forget that I’m in the state whose official tree is the palmetto palm. The rolling countryside and dense woodlands look like they belong in the Appalachians, not in Florida, land of coral reefs and sugar-sand beaches. But that is the beauty of this 13,000-acre state park, nestled in the hinterlands between Tallahassee and Pensacola. Some locals call it the Garden of Eden, and not just because of its undeniable beauty. Here, and here alone, grows a rare tree that harkens back to the time of Adam and Eve. As the Bible tells it, when God told Noah that it was going to rain, his trusty servant fashioned an ark out of gopher wood. While theologians debate the exact wood, many believe it to be a type of “stinking cedar.” Of the tree varieties, three grow in China, one in Korea, one in Japan and one in California. The last, Torreya taxifolia, is found here, along a 65-mile stretch of the Apalachicola River. One hundred years ago, great stands of Torreya trees – some three feet around and 60 feet tall – grew along the eastern shore of this great river. In 1875, the fabled Harvard botanist Asa Gray made what he called a “pious pilgrimage” to Florida just to see these fabled evergreens. Foresters recognized the symbolic value of the Torreya tree early on and took steps to protect it. In the 1930s, men from Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps camped beneath its bows, hewing roads and trails out of the dirt and building one of Florida first state parks. (Torreya opened in 1939.) continued on page 20 Campground in the park. 18 VISITFLORIDA.com/northwest http://VISITFLORIDA.com/northwest
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