The gardeners recently put in this small garden designed to attract beneficial insects so they could cut down on the insecticides they used to deal with pests. The really interesting part of this picture, though, is the tree in the center: a dawn redwood.

The dawn redwood is a very interesting tree with a very interesting story. This is a critically endangered species and is the only species in its genus (Metasequoia). It’s deciduous, too. This is weird. Imagine a pine tree losing its needles every year. This tree was discovered by botanists in the 40s. As a fossil in Japan. A few years later a grove of unidentified trees was found in China. And they turned out to match the fossil. Craziness.