- Plants -- Introduction
- Healing Trees Project
- Resilience: Pine
- Respect and Care: Elm
- Reflection: Birch
- Remembrance: Willow
- Renewal: Dawn Redwood
- How to Plant Successfully
Tree of Renewal: Dawn Redwood (Taxodiaceae)
By Anne Wiesen
The Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is a deciduous conifer, with soft needle-like leaves that look like evergreens, but are bright green in Spring, brilliant orange/red in Fall, and are shed in the cold season of Winter. This tree was discovered first through 30-50 year old fossils uncovered in the early 1940's in Japan. Thought to have been extinct, living specimens of the Dawn Redwood were discovered in central China soon after the fossils were uncovered. (Dirr, Barnard) Known to systematic botanists as an ancient relative of the giant sequoia and redwoods of California, the species is estimated to be 100 million years old. After a 15 million-year period of absence on the North American continent (Dawn Redwoods are part of the California fossil collection), the Dawn Redwood renewed its place in the Plant Kingdom and in the United States, thriving today as a highly admired ornamental in the Northern Hemisphere.
All plants can be thought of as symbols of renewal. The Dawn Redwood was chosen, in part, because of the story of its remarkable recovery, and the equally remarkable welcome the tree receives from those who know its story. 1947 the Arnold Arboretum sponsored an expedition to collect and disperse seeds of the living Dawn Redwoods to botanical gardens and arboreta around the world. The Tree of Renewal suggests that it is always possible to renew our place in the world and resume a vital role in our communities.
The Dawn Redwood prefers full sun and moist-to-wet, well-drained soils. A large area is recommended to accommodate growth in height of 80 - 100 feet
Structure- Visual and auditory screen
- A grove for special community gatherings
- Sense of natural grandeur
- Provides a strong sense of symmetry and order due to unusually straight lines of trunk
- Soft needles
- Reddish brown fissured bark
- Strong Spring, Summer and Fall (orange to red) colored foliage
The living history of the Dawn Redwood starts in the early 1940's. Having been discovered so recently, the ethnobotanical uses of this tree beyond its place as a striking ornamental, and a symbolic Tree of Renewal, is yet to be determined.
