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Community Corner

NATIONAL ARBOR DAY PROGRAM "MEET A METASEQUOIA'

The Lawrence Shade Tree Advisory Committee [STAC] will celebrate National Arbor Day with a program at the Lawrence Nature Center on Saturday, April 26, from 10 am to 12:30 am.  Residents are invited to "Meet a Metasequoia"

The Metasequoia tree or "dawn redwood" is a fast-growing tree with an impressive, dignified - even heroic - look as it matures.  The STAC has recommend to the Lawrence Township council that the dawn redwood be designate for memorial plantings, and the Council accepted the recommendation. A site for memorial tree planting has been chosen on the Township-owned Dyson Tract which is located along the east side of Princeton Pike.  The Dyson Tract is near Provinceline Road and about 300 yards south of the Chapin School.  The memorial trees will form an allee along the well-maintained walking and biking trail which leads into the Dyson tract.  Residents are invited to donate a Metasequoia tree in memory of a loved one whose worthy acts they wish to recognize and memorialize.

National Arbor Day is the last Friday in April.  Arbor Day is intended to be a reminder of the best time for tree-planting in the Springtime.  The Lawrence Public Schools regularly commemorate Arbor Day with a tree planting. In 2013, a tree was planted in from of Slackwood School, on Princeton Pike.

The tree at the Lawrence Nature Center was planted by Lucille Rinck and her husband, probably in 1948 or 1949m and has grown to enormous size.  Attendees will hear a talk about amazing history of the dawn redwood. Metasequoia glyptostroboides, is one of three species of conifers knows as redwoods.  It grows to a least 200 feet [60 meters] in height.  It is closely related to Sequoia sempervirens [coast redwood] and Sequoiadendrom giganteum [giant sequoia] of California but grows particularly well in the mid-Atlantic States.  Older specimens form wide buttresses on the lower trunk.

Members of the Lawrence Township Shade Tree Advisory Committee will talk about the dawn redwood and the memorial tree planting project.  After the talk, light refreshments will be served.

Attendees can also tour the other specimen trees that form a small arboretum around the Rinck House at the Lawrence Nature Center, and can learn how the meadow on the west side of the Nature Center is maintained in the Springtime and walk the marked trails into the Drexel Woods. The woods surround the meadow.



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