Giambrone. (2013). Dawn Redwood Bark

In 1943, the dawn redwood was discovered by a man named Chan Wang in Moudao, China. At first, he incorrectly classified it as being part of the glyptostrobus genus. Specimens taken from the individual were then sent over to Wan-Chun Cheng, the dendrology professor at the National Central University. Cheng correctly identified the specimen as being different from its believed species. In an attempt to discover the true identity of the tree, he sent it the director of the Fan Memorial Institute of Biology at Beijing, Hsen-Hsu Hu, in 1946. Hu was the first person to match fossilized records of metasequoia to the discovered specimen. The so-called extinct species was no longer just a member of the fossil record. News of this discovery spread quickly amongst botanists, dendrologists, and biologists around the world. People paid for seeds and samples from the original tree, and research on the tree began. In 1973, the Metasequoia Natural Reserve and Original Trees Management Station was founded in Xioahe, Lichuan, Hubei. The purpose of this organization was to preserve the dignity of the natural ranges of dawns in China. This group reported 5,746 specimens in the Xiaohe Commune with a breast-height diameter of over 20 cm. This number continues to drop, as human influence continues to put a toll on these natural giants.