This plate displays a beautiful fossilized short shoot of the prehistoric dawn redwood Metasequoia occidentalis from Montana.

The tree genus Metasequoia was initially known only from fossil records until a living relic of this fossil was discovered in China in 1941. The extant species Metasequoia glyptostroboides is not evergreen; the short shoots of the dawn redwood turn reddish-brown like those of deciduous trees and are shed in winter.

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