Dawn Redwoods

If they visit the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in mid-summer, tourists would see the hood-shaped dawn redwoods lined along the thickly wooded streets and roads during their sightseeing tour in Pyongyang and other local areas in the country. 

These fast-growing trees with soft leaves are widely distributed in different parts of the country, for they are immune to pine-caterpillar attack and of economic and ornamental value.

Until the early 1940s the tree had been known as fossil plant which had already been extinct on the earth.

During the Fatherland Liberation War the commander of the Chinese People’s Volunteers presented a dawn redwood tree to Kim Il Sung, eternal President of the DPRK, as a gift.

In the difficult days Kim Il Sung planted in person the young tree in a pot and cultivated it. After the war he transplanted it in the garden in his residence so that it could be acclimatized to Korea’s climatic and natural conditions and propagated widely across the country.

Today the dawn redwood tree, which he planted, stands tall in Kyongru-dong, a newly-built residential district of the people on the bank of the Pothong River, telling of the history of the kind of tree in the country.