After walking in the park, keeping a lookout at the various conifer trees, dodging the crowds of tourists on a chilly Spring day we were surprised to first come across a Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides), a relative of the Sequoia and Redwoods native to China. Close up the needles are tightly packed and arranged flatly, almost giving the appearance of a broadleaf. I don't think I have ever seen a Dawn Redwood, it was probably 4' in diameter, hard to give a good height, maybe 50' tall. There was a faded, old, plaque identifying the tree. The tree is located on the Arlington St. side of the swan boats pond, North of the George Washington statue along a path.
Of course we hung around to take some pictures. This is the first sequoia I've seen outside of California in person, and it was good to confirm that they do grow outdoors out here. However, the "giant sequoia", or Sequoiadendron are not to be confused with the Coastal Redwood which I have been trying to grow here indoors. I have never seen anywhere that the Coastal Redwood, which are adapted to the foggy Pacific coastline, can survive our winters. The Sequoiadendron is native to the Sierra Nevada mountains, so it can tolerate cold better. The Dawn Sequoia, being deciduous also apparently can grow here in this climate zone.
Up close I was amazed by how spikey the branches and needles were, it wasn't like my redwood seadlings which have fairly smooth bark on the branches with softer needles. The sequoia's branches were much denser with pretty short, sharp and stiff needles. There were a few fallen twigs around and we were able to get a good whiff of the tree's odor, which smelled nice, like a Christmas tree or wreath. It is amazing these are growing right in the center of city like this.
Later on I was browsing around various sites trying to find some more data on these trees, the Public Garden website had zero information and I haven't found anything else official about them. I came across a crowd-sourced site iNaturalist.org where users post pictures of wildlife and try to identify them. A user has posted a number of trees from the Public Garden. Apparently there are two Dawn Redwoods, as well as the one Giant Sequoia. There is a project dedicated to people making observations of "Redwoods", including the Sequoia and Dawn Redwood species, it is called RedwoodWatch organized by the Save the Redwoods League who aim to document the "in what climates redwoods can survive and track the redwood forests' migration over time.". I like the idea of the site and hope to contribute some of my own observations some day. However, at this point, not sure what merits being "observed". Also while interesting that there are Redwood tree species growing here, it is a somewhat artificial environment, I am sure there is a lot of care given to those trees in Public Gardens or in the nearby Arnold Arboretum.
