Dawn Redwood - Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Dawn redwoods once blanketed the entire Northern Hemisphere and were thought to have been extinct for millions of years until their rediscovery in 1941 by a Chinese forester in a remote corner of the Sichuan (at the time, Szechuan) Province in south-central China. Somehow, a little over one thousand trees had survived for millennia in a region that ironically is not even Metasequoia’s ideal environment! How then, did it survive in the Shui-sha Valley when it perished elsewhere? That is one of the great modern mysteries.

The impressive tree is a deciduous conifer, meaning its bright green needles turn orangish-brown before falling off in Autumn. The tree grows somewhat fast forming a highly tapered trunk, becoming buttressed with maturity. Over time this tree can reach 100 ft.