Campus Nature Trail
Stop 7
The small bed in front of the William Smith Building was planted in memory of Dr.Thomas Burnaby, a member of the Geology Department from 1954 to 1967. It contains three Dawn Redwoods Metasequoia glyptostroboides. This is a tree that, until its discovery in China in 1941, was only know from fossil evidence.
It is a deciduous conifer, closely related to the Swamp Cypress Taxodium distichum which can be found at location A on the Woodland Trail. It differs from that species in having leaflets in opposite pairs rather than alternate. Dawn Redwoods can be found elsewhere on campus.
Learn more about Dawn Redwoods.
The stone on the plinth is worth a look as it a glacial erratic ie. a boulder transported by ice and left here when the ice retreated. Itwas found when the foundations of the Students' Union building were being dug out. A similar boulder can be seen in Lake 1 infront of Keele Hall.
