Themed displays

Living fossils

Some living species have almost the same appearance today as they did many millions of years ago

Main content

The fossils in this picture belong to a 50 million year old Metasequoia and were found on Svalbard in 2006. It is not difficult to see the similarity of these leaves to those of living trees in the Arboretum.

We have a number of examples of such "living fossils" - extant plants with seemingly identical ancient fossil relatives - in the collections, with several grouped in a display along the road between the rose garden and the Rhododendron cultivar displays.

Metasequoia glyptostroboides (the dawn redwood)

Until 1941, Metasequoia was known only from fossil finds in the northern hemisphere, where it formed forests in the time of the dinosaurs (100-70 million years ago)

Sciadopitys verticillata (the Japanese umbrella-pine)

The Japanese umbrella-pine is the last remaining species of the Sciadopityaceae, a family that existed more than 200 million years ago

Ginkgo biloba

Ginkgo was described by Engelbert Kaempfer in 1712 after which became a popular introduction in European parks. In some European cities it is planted as a street tree as it requires little maintenance.

13.08.2021