|
 Thought to have been extinct for millions of years, in 1941 living Dawn Redwoods were discovered in Szechuan, China. Seeds from these trees were collected in 1947 by a Harvard University sponsored expedition, shipped to Boston and distributed among leading botanic gardens. It was a mark of Frank Bailey’s reputation in horticultural circles that he was among the first to receive seedlings, and in 1982 a survey of trees from the original Harvard consignment reported that the largest tree at Bailey Arboretum was the finest of the lot. In 2007 the International Metasequoia Society declared that this particular specimen has the largest girth of any Dawn Redwood in the world.
Today there are only a few small and scattered stands of indigenous Dawn Redwoods left in Hubei and Szechuan and the species is classified as “critically endangered” in the wild by the World Conservation Union. Seedlings are periodically available for sale at Bailey Arboretum. The mature trees can be enjoyed during all seasons, freshly green in the spring, they turn golden in the fall before losing their needles. Other distinguishing features include a “ropy” trunk and a sharply pointed silhouette.
See www.botanic.cam.ac.uk for more information on Dawn Redwoods
|
|
|
Frank Bailey was born in Chatham, New York, in 1865. His father was a well-respected physician and amateur naturalist who collected rare minerals and fresh water shells, but often neglected to collect from his patients. His mother, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke focused her worldly ambitions on her son.
After graduating from Union College on a scholarship, Frank Bailey rapidly accumulated a substantial fortune, becoming a senior officer of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company. For all his success, however, he felt “something was missing from his life.” He looked back on excursions with his father, keeping “a sharp lookout for unusual trees and plants” as some of the happiest moments in his childhood. In 1911 Bailey bought a house and 45 acres in Locust Valley.
He was not interested in building a “French chateau or an English castle, like so many other houses in the vicinity,” and mocked the pretensions of his neighbors by naming his property “Munnysunk.” What distinguished “his place from all others is the enormous number and variety of trees.” His hope was to influence the practice of horticulture so that “tree gardens may some day become as common as flower gardens.”
All words in quotes are from Frank Bailey’s autobiography, It Can’t Happen Here Again: The Life Story of a Self-Made Man, Alfred A. Knopf, 1944.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bayville Road and Feeks Lane | Lattingtown, NY 11560