• The Daily Barometer (June 3, 1948) reported that Professor J.R. Dilworth, assistant professor of forest management, recently received a packet of dawn redwood seeds from [Harvard’s] Arnold Arboretum, Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts.  According to Dilworth the ancient trees would soon be growing in the Peavy arboretum north of Corvallis.  The article further states that the seeds were collected by Ralph W. Chaney, a paleobotanist at the University of California, during an expedition to China earlier in the year. (See Dawn Redwood Discovery)  It is likely that the seeds from Arnold Arboretum were actually sent by Dr. E. D. Merrill, the Director of the Arboretum, for Merrill received such seeds from a Chinese scientist in January 1948 and quickly redistributed then to institutions and individuals in the U.S, including Chaney.
  • It is reported in the Daily Barometer, April 26, 1949, that Chaney gave three rare seedling trees (incorrectly identified as Dawn Sequoia in the article) to Paul Dunn, dean of the school of forestry, for planting on the Oregon State campus.  The seedling where each in 1-gallon cans and about a foot tall, they were derived from seeds Chaney planted in April 1948.  A one-page typed report by R. F. Keniston, dated May 5, 1950, and titled, Data on Metasequoia glyptostroboides, outlines where and when the three small trees were planted and thier early growth (Ed Jensen’s file of Arboretum Records, Landscape Shop).  Planting occurred in the spring of 1949 at three locations at Oregon State, two were planted on the main campus and one was planted “upstream from the [Forestry] Cabin” in McDonald Forest.  One campus tree was planted south of the Forestry Building, now Morland Hall, the other in the “lawn East of Benton Hall”, now Community Hall.  Neither of the trees planted near the Forestry Building nor at the Forestry Cabin have survived.
  • The tree panted east of Community Hall has survived and flourished.  A smaller dawn redwood stands northeast of this tree, it was planted on June 4,1991 to memorialize those affected by the violent crackdown on protesting students in Tiananmen Square, Beijing (Daily Barometer, June 20, 1991). The protest was forcibly suppressed by armed troops supported by tanks on June 4, 1989. Reporters and Western diplomats that were there that day estimated that hundreds to thousands of protesters were killed in the “Tiananmen Square Massacre”, and as many as 10,000 were arrested.  A bench facing this tree is part of the memorial.