a deciduous conifer, Metasequoia glyptostroboides, native to China but planted in other regions as an ornamental tree: family Taxodiaceae. Until the 1940s it was known only as a fossil
dawn redwood in American English
a coniferous Chinese tree (Metasequoia glyptostroboides) of the baldcypress family, resembling the redwood of California but having deciduous twigs and needles: it is now propagated in the U.S.