A Living Fossil

"Forest" of the Dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). A living fossil: this tree was once one of the most widespread tree species in the Northern hemisphere (during the Tertiary period). Fossils have been found across the northern hemisphere, including Greenland and Spitzbergen, dating from when the continents were further south, and close together sharing a common flora. In 1941 Shigeru Miki of Japan was reclassifying fossil remains that had been incorrectly classified as Sequoia and Taxodium. Due to its resemblance to the North American coast redwood (Sequoia sempervirens), he named the tree species Metasequoia, which means "almost a sequoia, sequoia-ish". Botanists think this species is the ancestor of the present day coast redwood. To summarize: at that time, the tree was only known as an fossil tree species, extinct for millions of years.(source: Monumental trees ... please see the link below)

Volčji Potok Arboretum is the largest botanical park (arboretum) in Slovenia and comparable to the well known botanical parks of the World.. Visitors from all parts of Europe came to this place to be fascinated by millions of spring flowers every year. The park spreads on eighty hectares of ecologically much diversified ground which is occupied by about 2.500 different types of trees and shrubs. The plant collection has been thoughtfully designed as a landscape park. Arboretum was declared as a cultural monument of the highest importance in 1999. This place is interesting in every season of the year: people come here for walks in early spring to enjoy the nature's colorful waking, on hot days to find delight in charming gaily colored flower beds, in autumn to find peace and solitude and make use of the last warm sunshine rays and finally they come in winter to pay attention to things not noticed earlier...

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Europe / Slovenia

Lat: 46° 11' 11.76" N
Long: 14° 36' 47.34" E

Elevation: 320 m

→ maps.google.com [EXT]

Precision is: Unknown / Undeclared.

Canon 5DMK2, Canon 15 mm, bracketing -2,0,+2