as separate, slightly leafy parts, which often occur in irregular numbers, 
and fairly unspecialized stamens and carpels (the clustered units at the 
center of the flower). Pollination is largely by beetles, which are consid- 
ered to be among the most primitive pollinators. 
The name “cucumbertree” comes from the immature fruits, which 
look like little cucumbers while green; they redden toward the end of the 
season and then dry out into a cluster of seed-bearing pouches (carpels), 
which open to allow a bright red seed to fall out and dangle on a thread. 
Thus displayed, the seeds are easily found and are probably dispersed 
through the digestive systems of birds. The young fruits were once placed 
in whiskey as a folk remedy for fevers and to enhance its flavor. 
The name Magnolia honors the botanist Pierre Magnol, and acuminata 
indicates leaves with slender, tapering tips. 
See Map: H 
DAWN REDWOOD 
Metasequoia glyptostroboides 
The dawn redwood is one of the most 
intriguing botanical discoveries of the 
My “Pe 20th century. Its existence was unknown 
to botany until 1941, when two key 
(kee events took place. First, a Japanese 
ae SY Vy SS paleobotanist, Shigeru Miki, realized 
SY SY LAW that odd conifer fossils from around the 
NY \¢ WY, MY, << Northern Hemisphere long misidentified 
Sy Y VA. LOS as representing familiar living conifers 
LWW were relicts of a previously unknown 
WY iu and presumably extinct tree. He named 
WNW WS his new fossil discovery Metasequoia. 
, Likewise in 1941, a Chinese forester, 
T. Kan, noticed a curious conifer growing 
near the remote central Chinese mountain town of Modaogi. This led to 
investigations that culminated in 1946 in the realization by botanist H. H. 
Hu that T. Kan’s curious living conifer and Dr. Miki’s fossil Metasequoia 
12 
ae 
