Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens

Tree of the month series - this series of short articles about trees in the Belfast Botanic Gardens is compiled by members of the Friends group and Gardens staff. The series will gradually build up to a comprehensive archive of information about the trees in Belfast Botanic gardens. Each article will illustrate the tree in Belfast together with information from a range of sources elsewhere. For each tree there is a map or link to a map showing the location in the gardens. Click here for the rest of the trees (when we have more than one!)

Tree of the Month, April 2007
Metasequoia glyptostroboides - Dawn redwood

by Jon Pilcher

There are three dawn redwoods in the Botanic Gardens, the most noticeable is just behind the Kelvin statue near the Malone road entrance. It is typical of the shape of young trees of this species; a very symmetrical, conical shape, tapering to a pointed tip. There is a much older tree, still with the typical conical shape, in the rock garden. The species was discovered in the wild in China in 1946 and the first batch of seeds grown in the Arnold Arboretum in Boston in 1948. After this, seeds were distributed all around the world and it is likely that the oldest Botanic Gardens tree dates from about 1950. The third tree is to the left side of the path leading from the Malone gate to the Palm House.

Metasequoia is one of relatively few deciduous conifers (as are the larches and swamp cyprus). The leaves are arranged on short branches which are shed as a unit rather like the compound leaves of an ash tree. The leaves are similar in shape to Sequoia, hence the name. The trunk is a reddish brown.

Detailed information on the dawn redwood can be found in the Wikipedia article. Below: pictures of the young tree near the Kelvin statue taken in mid-April with partially expanded leaves. Bottom right, the trunk of the old tree in the rockery and below left one of the original trees in the Arnold Arbotetum.

	above: young expanding foliage of Metasequoia left: the young tree behind Kelvin statue
	the two young dawn redwoods near the Kelvin statue
Above: one of original trees in Arnold Arboretum Right: oldest Metasequoia in Belfast Botanic Gardens