The Dawn Redwood by the Kelvin Statue

Until 1946 this species existed only as a fossil. Metasequoia was known from stone impressions and presumed extinct until living trees were found in China that year. Seed reached the Arnold Arboretum in Boston in 1948, and the seedlings raised from it were the first dawn redwoods sent out to botanic gardens around the world. Belfast's came almost immediately. The Friends of Belfast Botanic Gardens date this specimen to about 1950, which makes it one of the first dawn redwoods grown in Ireland after the species came back. It carries tag number 59, and the Tree Council of Ireland's register lists it as a notable tree. At roughly 76 years old it is young for a tree with a page here, and that is the interesting part: the whole cultivated stock outside China began with one sowing in Boston, and this is one of the first of those plants to reach the island. It is also a conifer that behaves like a broadleaf. The needles come through fresh green in spring, and in late October they turn rust orange and fall, the whole lot of them, which is not what a conifer is supposed to do. Three dawn redwoods now grow in these gardens, which is a fair measure of how quickly a resurrected species can be made ordinary.