City of London - The Gherkin (London)

There are around twenty Dawn Redwood (Metasequoia glyptostrobodies) growing around the Gherkin. The building was opened in May 2004 and stands at 30 St Mary Axe in the City of London. It was originally called the Swiss Re Building but very quickly was being referred to by its new appropriate nickname. It has 41 floors and the tower is 180 metres (591 ft) tall, so the trees around it will always be dwarfed by the building.

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* * * Update - October 2019 * * * Tomasz wrote to say that he wandered into the area"Only to discover that I believe some, or all of them, to be Swamp Cypresses (Taxodium distichum), there are 8 trees which look like Dawn Redwood, however I base the observation they might not be - on the needles from fallen branches. Only on looking at the photos now, do I see a clear colour distinction between trees, where each pair of trees has one with a lighter foliage and one with a darker foliage. When I was there it was very windy and I could only judge by the branches I picked up. On further search I came across this page http://www.londontrees.co.uk/swamp-cypress.html Swamp Cypress are still trees I really like, I have however never seen them with so few leaves. I believe it’s the adverse effect of soil compaction from all the suits walking all over the root area. On reflection, I now believe that maybe 4 of the trees are Dawn Redwood and 4 are Swamp Cypress. I just thought I’d share all this with you to judge yourself." Well blow me down with a feather! There is no excuse for it, I just mis-identified them despite being more than familiar with the differences between these two tree types. My only excuse was that I was working at the time and it was a fleeting visit, plus as you can see the foliage is well above head height. Perhaps as Tomasz says, they are a mixture of the two types of trees and I just happened to find some fallen Dawn Redwood foliage. I'll get my coat... Obviously this needs a summer time visit with a set of ladders. Any volunteers?

Swamp Cyrpress foliage from one of the trees