I really obsess over tree ID and love a good challenge. Here’s a good one: This one really gave me a throw... When I first spotted the tree it looked so odd to me. Sizable tree about 24-26” DBH off a parking lot at a business that’s located in an old house from the 1800s. Spent some time looking it over. Snapped some pictures. Instantly perplexed. Looking through all my guides last night and it was driving me crazy not being able to match its features with anything. Reasoned pretty quickly that it certainly isn’t native. Took a long while to ID it but finally got there. It’s not native to the Northeast or North America for that matter. Planted ornamentally occasionally. Was more popular to plant in past decades. Here’s a good clue - It happens often when people buy a new home and they have one of these trees in the yard, it’s foliage is brown and dead in the late fall, so they assume the tree itself is dead and have it cut down.
It's some kind of tamarack or larch. Just not sure what. Bark looks like cedar or juniper, little cones look like tamarack, no foliage in the winter is typical of the species.
It looks like a dawn redwood based upon the trunk, bark and little seed pods, I have one over 100’ tall in my yard, the only thing is that the shape is a little off, should be Christmas tree shaped, unless it was heavily damaged at some point and grew that way as a result. Lousy firewood if it is a dawn redwood.
The only thing we have around here that is even close is Cypress, but those aren't native. I have no idea what that is.
Bald cypress is native to the southeastern US, according to Wikipedia. Winston said dawn redwood (metasequoia, native to China) and that's probably it.
Definitely Dawn Redwood. They are easy to ID once you have seen one once. Their shape and branch structure are a dead give away. Very cool trees, I want to plant one in my yard
I second what Winston said that the shape is a little off, I glanced at the picture quick and didn't notice
It’s a cool tree, mine is 110’ tall last time I did a laser measurement and 50 years old according to the neighbor. Great shade tree in the summer like a cypress tree. It grows really fast, turns a nice gold to orange in the fall. The big downside is its messy because it’s a deciduous conifer and drops all the froms in the winter and it drops twigs all time. It is pretty much like a giant weeping willow with what the wood is like and the mess it makes.
How cold can a dawn redwood handle for winter temperature? I have never laid eyes on one myself but have always thought they were neat and would plant one just to be different if it could handle Dakotah Territory cold.
Don’t think they can survive North Dakota. I don’t know how anything survives your arctic weather. Zone 4 is pushing their cold threshold.
Here is mine, they get massive, I don’t think they know exactly how big they can get in the United States I saw one article that mentions one that has reached 200’.
Technology isn’t my thing, I have no clue because I see them attached to the post, I only know one way to do it. Open to suggestion if no one can see the two pictures. I would hate to think my pics in the other threads didn’t show.
