Tree of the Week: The dawn redwood

 The Dawn Redwood -- Metasequoia glytptostroboides

Japanese paleobotanist S. Miki described samples of Metasequoia in 1941 as a separate fossil genus, not belonging to the same genus as the California redwoods. Four years later, forest researcher Z. Wang found four unknown trees in a temple near China's Sichuan province. A year later, Beijing professors Hu and Cheng organized another expedition to find more of these new trees. It turned out that Miki’s 100-million-plus-year-old fossils had direct, living relatives. Much of the remaining tree population was logged after the revolution of 1949.

The original tree population is critically endangered in its native habitat of the damp ravines of west China’s Sichuan, Hubei and Hunan, but in the meantime the tree has spread all over the world (seeds made it to the Boston, Mass., Arnold Arboretum in 1948). The original trees came from too few seeds and suffered from genetic shortcomings; later seed collecting in China corrected this shortcoming.

The dawn redwood is one of the few deciduous conifers. The tree can grow quite fast (4 to 6 feet a year when young in California) and so far reaches a pyramidal 90 feet tall by 20 feet wide. The thin branches are arranged around a stout, reddish-gray and peeling central trunk with fissured bark. Older trees show wide buttresses on the lower trunk. In older trees the bole may become beautifully contorted if not stripped of its branches.

In leaf the tree resembles the bald cypress, Taxodium distichum, as well as the coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens. The opposite, bird-feather-like rows of half-inch-long small leaflets are beautiful softgreen; they turn apricot before falling off in autumn, together with the annual twigs. Cones are up to an inch in size. The tree will take to any well-drained soil, or even wet soil, but loves regular moisture; it is not a tree for dry spots. It will grow in a lawn, but eventually it may develop surface roots. It does not like desert heat or salt air, and is resistant to oak root fungus.

A few cultivars are available: the bright green "Emerald Feathers" and the narrow, conical "National."

-- Pieter Severynen

Thoughts? Comments?

Photo: Pieter Severynen

Comments

[syscom3]

Not a California native. Therefore it should not be allowed in the state.

[Ken Bock]

Good report on the Dawn Redwood...my folks, long gone, who were master gardeners in their old age told me at their home in Portland Oregon, about the Chinese Dawn Redwood, in the 1970s or 80s. My wife and I lived in Walnut Creek California for 35 years and traveled to the coast redwoods frequently. One day on a trip to the state capitol in Sacramento we spotted a huge Dawn Redwood on the lawn of the capitol building. As i recall it now, facing the front of the capitol building, it is on the left side yard. It is (was) a large magnificent specimen. Hope you get to see it.

Ken and Mary Ann Bock
Retired in Astoria Oregon

[lucy]

Jesus! get that tree away from that house!!one bad windstorm and that house is done for.

[Amber]

Wow, that is a huge tree next to that house. I love this series. Please don't ever stop posting the "tree of the week"!

[steve]

i have been growing these trees for 10 years now, and give them away after about 2 years.

i moved out west about 5 years ago and prior to that grew about 40 of these in nyc, planted them in various parks, and they are all doing well.

this tree is magnificent, and will withstand almost anything, however the root system is not very deep,

another tree that should be considered is the african baobab.

[M. D. Vaden]

Those are very nice looking trees with soft foliage. But too large for many urban lots, unless placed in the middle of the largest planting area, alone. Often, the roots are too expansive if there are sidewalks or driveways nearby.

In the photo above, it appears as if the sidewalk is already being lifted by one of the large surface roots.

MDV
Beaverton / Portland