The Dawn Redwood of the Public Garden
Beacon Hill / Public Garden
Approximate location.
Until 1944 this species was known only from fossils and assumed to have been extinct for millions of years. Then living Metasequoia turned up in Sichuan, and in early 1948 the first seeds to leave China arrived at Harvard's Arnold Arboretum in Jamaica Plain, a few miles from where this tree stands, just ahead of the door closing on scientific exchange with China for decades. The Arboretum raised seedlings and sent them around the world. This one was planted in the Public Garden in 1963, one of four here. It is not old, and it is not pretending to be. At about 63 it earns its place on what it is rather than how long it has stood. Dawn redwood is a deciduous conifer, which most people meet for the first time in autumn, when a tree that plainly looks like a redwood turns foxy orange and drops every needle it has. The trunk is fluted and deeply hollowed under each branch, another oddity of the species, and a younger 'Gold Rush' cultivar stands across the path for comparison. One note on sourcing: the 1963 planting date and the exact placement come from the Friends of the Public Garden, whose own people care for the tree, and we found no record of this specimen independent of them.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Boston Public Garden, near the Charles Street / Beacon Street corner of the Lagoon
You can recognise it by the trunk, fluted and deeply hollowed under every branch, on a conifer that goes foxy orange and drops its needles. It stands at the Charles Street corner of the Lagoon, across the path from a younger 'Gold Rush'.
Arlington MBTA station (Green Line), roughly 2-3 minute walk
Autumn colour
late October into November, when the needles turn foxy orange and fall
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
