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Dawn Redwood
Metasequoia glyptostroboides
In March of 2025 the Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park purchased and planted four new species of trees in Baldwin Park. One dawn redwood was planted in the northeast corner. This tree, like the bald cypress planted in 2022, is a deciduous conifer that can grow to 150 feet tall. See Wikipedia entry here.
Dawn redwood factoids:
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metasequoia means "like a sequoia" and glyptostroboides means like the Chinese swamp cypress (Glyptostrobus)​
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it is difficult to distinguish the bald cypress from the dawn redwood. Both are tall deciduous conifers. Both like wet settings. Both turn a golden brown in the fall. Both are in the family Cupressaceae.
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the genus was identified in 1941 based on widespread northern hemispheric fossils of the tree. Living trees had been unknown until that same year when a grove of dawn redwoods was found in China. In 1946 it was finally recognized that the fossil and living species were the same. Trees have been propagated from seeds from those trees but in the wild the dawn redwood is now an endangered species.
Botany 101 Bonus
Let's make some animal analogies.
To our eyes the dawn redwood and bald cypress look the same. They are in the same family but are in different genera (plural of genus). Humans and chimpanzees are likewise in the same family (Hominidae) but different genera (Homo vs. Pan respectively). Dawn redwoods and bald cypresses are as distantly related as humans and chimps, i.e. not that distant but noticeably distinct...to us. Perhaps, to a dolphin or a cow, humans and chimps are indistinguishable.
The bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) and the dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) are both deciduous conifers, both in the same family Cupressaceae, and both look alike. Subtle but tell-tale differences between dawn redwood on the left and bald cypress on the right distinguish these majestic species at the leaf level. There is a larger bald cypress tree on the NxNW property just on the other side of the northeast fence.
There is a very tall dawn redwood near the northeast corner of 21st and Hamilton Streets on the City View Condominium property.
Another difference is that mature dawn redwoods have "armpits," or hollows, beneath their branches. This doesn't help in young trees like ours.
Another animal analogy:
In 1938 a fish that was known only from the fossil record and was thought to be extinct was brought up in a fishing net. This coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) was called a "living fossil" since it was found alive without significant physical changes from the 60-million-year-old fossil specimens. The Ginkgo biloba, like the new one on the northeast corner of 20th and Hamilton Streets, has also been called a living fossil, since this one remaining species in the order Ginkgoales has identical fossils that date back 170 million years. Other taxonomists prefer the term "Lazarus taxon" to denote a species that disappeared from the fossil record but then was found to still exist. The dawn redwood is in this category: thought to be extinct until the species was found alive in China.
Over 99.9% of all species that have ever lived are now extinct. In Baldwin Park there are three species that were headed towards extinction. The yellowwood has a very limited natural range in the wild. The Franklinia had an even more limited range and is in fact now extinct in the wild. The dawn redwood natural range leans more toward the Franklinia story and that is why the Chinese government has put strict protections on dawn redwoods in the wild.
The Friends of Matthias Baldwin Park are doing our share to preserve our planet's biodiversity!
Natural range of the yellowwood, Cladrastis kentuckea
The speck within the red circle is, or was, the natural range of the Franklinia, Franklinia alatamaha
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