It belongs to the Taxodiaceae Family, with the Latin name ofMetasequoia glyptostroboides.
The deciduous megaphanecophyte grow up to 35 to 42 meters high, with a chest diameter of 1.6 to 2.4 meters. It has taupe bark cracking into strips and swells at the bottom of the trunk. The boughs stretch slantingly upward. The 1-year twigs are light gray while the winter buds have white marks of short branchlet on the top or their sides. The leaves are soft and linear, penniformly lined on lateral branches. It is a kind of monoecious plant with subsphaeroidal sagging cones that ripen in the same year, whose seeds are flat and obovoid, with wings around.
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It usually grows in warm and moist places, where it is cool in summer and snowy but not freezing in winter. It prefers the acidic mountain yellow earth, purple soil or alluvia, with the pH value of 4.5 to 5.5. It is always found in the valleys at an altitude of 800 to 1,200 meters, or the moist or slightly waterlogged piedmonts with a gentle landform and deep and thick soil layer. It is a photophilous plant, with developed root system and intumescence or longitudinal ridges in the bottom of the trunk. The soil moisture determines its growing speed; therefore there is a slow growth in the places poorly drained. It has its florescence in the last ten days of February, and the cones ripen from the last ten days of October to November.
It is distributed over the borderland of Hubei, Sichuan and Hunan provinces.This world-renowned plant is a peculiarmono-genusChinese plant. Being graceful in appearance, it can be used for courtyard greening and ornamental purposes. Moreover, with a fast growing, strong adaptability and vegetative propagation, it could be used for speedy and prolific forestation.
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