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dawn redwood

[ dawn red-wood ]

noun

  1. an endangered deciduous conifer, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, the shortest of the three extant species of subfamily Sequoioideae, reaching a height of 150 feet (45.7 meters): known only as widespread Mesozoic fossils until isolated living specimens were discovered in central China in the 1940s. Compare redwood 1( def 1 ).


dawn redwood

noun

  1. a deciduous conifer, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, native to China but planted in other regions as an ornamental tree: family Taxodiaceae. Until the 1940s it was known only as a fossil
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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Word History and Origins

Origin of dawn redwood1

First recorded in 1940–45
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Example Sentences

Then in the early 1940s, a Chinese forester discovered an old dawn redwood growing in a central Chinese valley.

The fossil record shows signs of a redwood relative and the dawn redwood, a related species now mainly found in China, across the Intermountain West, specifically in Montana and Idaho, he said.

Other conifers in the fossil flora are the dawn redwood, Metasequoia, and swamp cypress Glyptostrobus.

The metasequoia, or dawn redwood, entered a sort of plant limbo in the darkness, neither growing nor showing visible signs of decline.

Two of the finest conifers — the dawn redwood and the bald cypress — lose their needles in winter.

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