Dawn Redwood in Korea

It had been considered that dawn redwood had gone extinct in the world and existed only in the form of fossil until 1945 when the living one was discovered, and later it was propagated across the world.

The tree is a species of high academic and economic value.

It grows thick, high and fast. Especially it grows very fast when young. A 30-year-old one stands 20 to 30 metres high, which means that it grows five times more quickly than pine tree. For its fine grain, hardness and close texture, the tree can be used as a material for making furniture and paper. It is also good for landscaping and gardening, and especially for planting as a roadside tree for it is highly resistant to insects and retains yellow leaves until late autumn or early winter when other trees shed their leaves.

In Juche 39 (1950) the great leader Comrade Kim Il Sung was presented with a sampling of the tree by a foreigner. Though the prevailing situation was grim as the Fatherland Liberation War was on, he planted it in a vase. After the war was over, he transplanted it to the garden of his house, and cultivated it with utmost care, even covering it with straw in winter. In this way, he acclimatized it to the soil conditions of Korea, and studied the way how it could be propagated. Later, he gave botanists the task of propagating it widely across the country.

The tree is now flourishing everywhere in Korea conveying his ennobling patriotism.