Description

Metasequoia dakotaensis
Gymnosperm
Late Cretaceous (Maastrichtian)
Hell Creek Formation
Wibaux County, Montana, USA

Average 28mm fine cone. Our pick. Price is each.

Metasequoia has an interesting history. It’s a conifer genus that appeared about 100 million years ago during the early part of the Late Cretaceous. It went on to survive the end-Cretaceous extinction and thrived in North America during the Paleocene and Eocene even as far north as Ellesmere Island, the fossils indicating a wet, mild climate even in northernmost Canada at the time. However, climates began trending drier and cooler by the Late Eocene and the palaeogeographic range of Metasequoia became more and more restricted across time.

Metasequoia died out in North America by the end of the Miocene and was considered extinct worldwide until it was discovered alive in China in the 1940’s. Since then, it has been successfully re-introduced into North America.

Here’s a Metasequoia cone from the last few million years of the Cretaceous when the last of the dinosaurs were alive. It’s a reminder that the world was different in many ways then but much the same in others.