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Metasequoia trees are ablaze with autumn colors in Takashima, Shiga Prefecture, in December. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Two towering trees stretch their branches into the wintry sky in a corner of the National Museum of Nature and Science in Tokyo’s Ueno district.
The metasequoia, also known as “a living fossil,” was named 80 years ago by botanist Shigeru Miki (1901-1974), who taught at Kyoto Imperial University, present-day Kyoto University.
While analyzing numerous plant fossils, Miki came across an unidentified deciduous tree among those thought to be evergreen sequoia.
He published his discovery, naming it metasequoia. The prefix “meta” means “after” or “beyond” in Greek.