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Dawn Redwoods on Strawberry Creek: In the heart of our Redwood   a group of  Chinese Dawn Redwoods straddle Strawberry Creek. The creek brings the water from the Japanese pool above and transports it thru Berkeley to the Bay. The last of the gigantic white blooms of the tree peony are still visible and several benches around these trees offer an opportunity to enjoy the moment.

The large Dawn Redwoods,  Metasequoia glyptostroboides, are quite different from our native California trees, the Sequoia and Sequoiadendron,  because of their smoother bark of the Dawn Redwood, but especially because they are deciduous; they leafless all winter after putting on a colorful fall show,  but now in April, you can see the bright green flush of the new spring growth.

 This redwood was thought to be extinct for tens of millions of years until rediscovered in the early 40's. An expedition to China in 1947 led by Berkeley Paleobotany professor Ralph Chaney brought back some of the first seed and you are looking at the results of that trip; in other words, these trees are about 60 yrs old.

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