Dawn Redwood

Metasequoia glyptostroboides

Dawn Redwood is a remarkable living fossil known from the fossil record for over 90 million years and believed extinct until its rediscovery in a remote Chinese valley in 1944. Unlike its redwood relatives, it is deciduous, dropping its feathery, soft needles each autumn in a blaze of russet-orange color. It has since been widely planted as an ornamental worldwide and occasionally naturalized in moist bottomlands in eastern North America. The wild population in China's Hubei province is critically endangered, making cultivated specimens outside China important conservation reservoirs.

Habitat

Native to moist river valleys in central China; planted and occasionally naturalized in bottomlands and parks across eastern North America.

Diet

Seeds eaten by finches and small mammals; provides nesting structure for cavity-nesting birds in mature specimens.

How common

Rare