How well it is named, this tree with an unbroken lineage of two hundred million years!
It once formed vast forests around the northern hemisphere—forests in which the dinosaur roamed and in which the early birds learned to use the air as a means of transportation. This tree left an abundant fossil record in the deposits of the Mesozoic age.
It was thought extinct for 20 million years until, in 1944, a Chinese forester, Tsang Wang, discovered living plants in a remote valley of southwest China.
How The Dawn Redwood Was Discovered
“The fossil that came alive” was discovered by Wang in a valley 75 miles south of Wan Hsien, along the fabled Yangtze river below the city of Chunking.
Knowing that this plant was different but having no idea of its identity, Wang collected specimens of branches and cones for Dr. W. C. Chang of the National Central University in Nanking, China.
The taxonomist, Dr. H. H. Hu, was called into the picture. Dr. Hu recognized the specimens as like the fossils of metasequoia found in Manchuria and Japan, so after further study, the “living fossil” was given the jaw-breaking scientific name Metasequoia glyptostroboides.
In 1948, Dr. Wang sent the seed of the dawn redwood to the U.S.D.A. Plant Introduction Station. This seed was shared with the National Arboretum in Washington, D. C., where it was germinated and seedlings established. The dawn redwood had returned to North America after an absence of twenty million years!
A Graceful Annual
The dawn redwood, unlike its near relatives of the California redwood forests, is not evergreen. Instead, it drops its leaves each fall and renews them the following spring, just as elm or oak does.
Possibly because of this annual renewal of its foliage, the dawn redwood is less sad and more graceful than our familiar spruces and pines. The bright green foliage is light and airy and dances in every breeze.
Perhaps its very survival is related to superstition in its native valley. The primitive farmers use it in forecasting crops!
If the tree bears its cones high up in the top branches, it will be a good rice year; if the cones are on the lower branches, it will be a good bean year. This superstition may account for the tree being planted along roads and ditches.
This background information is interesting, but what of this redwood’s value as an ornamental for our homes and gardens? Is the dawn redwood just a rare plant, or does it have ornamental potential?
Original Seedlings
Last November, I had an opportunity to see the original dawn redwoods in the National Arboretum. Since 1948, the original seedlings have reached a height of about 40’ feet and an estimated diameter of 7” inches.
The trees were in fall color before dropping their leaves for the winter. The colors were brilliant yellows, buffs, and russets. Their slender spires made accent points against the drabness of the late fall coloration of the bare, deciduous oaks and elms.
Dawn redwood reaches a height of over 100’ feet and a diameter of 8’ feet, so a mature tree would be out of scale in the landscape planting. Young trees are most attractive with their feathery foliage and spire-like form.
They should be valuable in the background because the foliage contrasts with either pine and spruce or deciduous broadleafs. They would not do for foundation plantings but have considerable value as specimen trees.
They should be Valuable also for park plantings where a large size might be an advantage. Certainly, they make a conversation piece in any garden.
Redwood In Mild Climate
Coming from a region with a relatively mild climate, dawn redwoods are surprisingly hardy. In 1953, Sam Diedrich, a local plantsman, obtained several seedlings planted at North Platte, Nebraska, where they survived 20 below zero without serious injury.
At the age of eight, the largest tree is 13’ feet tall, even though it is growing on a lawn where grass gives it severe competition. Under less rigorous conditions, growth should be faster.
Dawn redwood is for the grower who wants something to talk about. The plant is a good ornamental, it appears hardy, and the bright green, lacy foliage that turns to yellows and russets in the fall accents the landscape planting.
Plants of the dawn redwood are now available. If you do not find it offered in your nursery catalogs, send a stamped envelope with your request for Bulletin No. 32 to Flower Garden, BR-32, 543 Westport Rd., Kansas City 11, Mo.
44659 by Glenn Viehmeyer