While the dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) is not as massive as its California cousin-the giant sequoia-for me, the tree has always possessed an equally mythical allure. Long believed to have gone the way of the dinosaurs-leaving behind only fossilized records of its existence-a wild stand was discovered in a remote region of China in the 1940s, and seeds were brought back to the United States, where it proved particularly adaptable to the primordial climate that still reigns on so much of the East Coast.