Dawn Redwood

     The Dawn redwood is an amazing tree which has survived unaltered for 150 million years, through asteroid impacts, ice ages, extinction of the dinosaurs, to be finally found alive in 1941 in a remote valley in China where it has been revered and treated as a sacred shrine.  Seed was distributed in 1947 whence all the current specimens have been grown from, so the oldest living tree (and some are HUGE) in the world outside of China is 76 years old or younger.  It is a cousin of the Bald cypress, which it closely resembles, and which is only one of two trees in temperate forests which will grow in standing water. It is also related to the sequoias of California. It is a tree which could have meaningful impact on temperate forests as it is such a fast grower and can adapt to so many soil conditions, from dry land to standing water. It can grow to enormous size, over 160 feet tall, and over 25 feet in diameter, though smaller than its California cousins. 

    As it was happily growing in Virginia some 80 million years ago, can one say it is “native” here?  We vote “yes” – the fact that it moved away for a few years does not take away the fact that this was home for a few million years.

Zone 4-8, deciduous, as with the Bald cypress, but as opposed to the California Sequoias.

    A prime candidate for effective long term carbon sequestration utilizing CRISPR and production of silica phytoliths – no one to date (2023) has undertaken such research.

Family: Cupressaceae (with it being the only tree in its genus)