The dawn redwood, also called the water larch or metasequoia, is a deciduous conifer, native to central China. The dawn redwood is over 50 million years old and has been called “a living fossil”. Until the 1940s, it was known only from fossil remains, and had been thought to be extinct for many millions of years. In 1944, some living dawn redwoods were found growing in the wild in Lichuan County of Hubei Province in China. Since its rediscovery, the dawn redwood has become a popular ornamental.
The dawn redwood is a fast-growing tree to 130 feet to 150 feet (40meters to 46meters) tall and 6 feet (2 meters) in trunk diameter with a full pyramidal shape crown in 20 years under good growing conditions. It likes being exposed to full sun and prefers moist, deep, well-drained soils. The linear and flattened leaves are opposite in arrangement. The bright green, feathery leaves turn reddish-brown in the fall. The trunk is quite slender and dramatically straight. It has both male and female flowers on the same tree. It is one of the few cone-bearing deciduous trees. The cones contain about 5 to 9 winged seeds. The cones ripen in early December and shed the seeds shortly afterward.