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. | 
