Torreya nucifera(L.) Siebold & Zucc.

Japanese Nutmeg TreeJapanese Nutmeg-yewJapanese torreya

WFO wfo-0000409013 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Torreya nucifera, photographed by りなべる
fig. a りなべる, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-08-22 / obs. 110899656
Torreya nucifera, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. b Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 68187200
Torreya nucifera, photographed by harum.koh
fig. c harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 47726726
Torreya nucifera, photographed by Yoshihiro Tokue
fig. d Yoshihiro Tokue, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 29829328
Torreya nucifera, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. e Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 17314969
Torreya nucifera, photographed by Eric Knight
fig. f Eric Knight, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 16316894
Torreya nucifera, photographed by harum.koh
fig. g harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 4299778
Torreya nucifera, photographed by harum.koh
fig. h harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 3657753

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 2 botanical countries

Regions where Torreya nucifera is native: Japan, Korea Japan Korea
Native distribution of Torreya nucifera, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Japan JAP ASIA-TEMPERATE
Korea KOR

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 17 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Caryotaxus nucifera (L.) Zucc. ex Henkel & W.Hochst.
  • Foetataxus nucifera (L.) J.Nelson
  • Podocarpus nuciferus (L.) Loudon
  • Taxodium nuciferum (L.) Brongn. ex Voigt
  • Taxus nucifera L.
  • Torreya ascendens Nakai ex Uyeki
  • Torreya fruticosa Nakai
  • Torreya igaensis Doi & Morik.
  • Torreya macrosperma Miyoshi
  • Torreya nucifera f. sphaerica (Kimura) Yonek.
  • Torreya nucifera var. articulata Miyoshi
  • Torreya nucifera var. igaensis (Doi & Morik.) Ohwi
  • Torreya nucifera var. macrosperma (Miyoshi) Koidz.
  • Torreya nucifera var. radicans Nakai
  • Torreya nucifera var. sphaerica Kimura
  • Torreya unda Miyoshi
  • Tumion nuciferum (L.) Greene

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.