Japanese name: チャボガヤ（矮鶏榧） Scientific name:Torreya nucifera var. radicans
[Overview]
An evergreen coniferous shrub up to 3 m tall, growing mainly in heavy-snow regions on the Sea of Japan side.
It is dioecious.
The lower part of the trunk creeps low, and many branches rise obliquely from the base; the branches are reddish.
The bark is smooth and gray, and develops vertical fissures in old trees.
The leaves are arranged spirally, but because the bases are twisted they appear to be in two rows.
The leaves are linear to linear-lanceolate, 2–2.5 cm long and 2–3 mm wide, and the tip is hard and sharply pointed, so they hurt when touched by hand.
The upper surface of the leaf is dark green and glossy, and the underside is pale green with two white stomatal bands.
The male flowers are borne in the leaf axils of the previous year's branches and are oblong, about 1 cm long.
The female flowers (ovules) are borne several at a time at the tips of short branches arising from the leaf axils of the previous year's branches, and one of them matures.
The seed is elliptical, enclosed in an aril, and ripens in October of the following year.
The aril is green at first, turns purplish brown when ripe, and splits to reveal the pale brown seed.
