Word: metasequoia
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...Chinese University employee stumbled across a giant coniferous tree--the Metasequoia--in remote central China. Ever since scientific journalists have squabbled as to whether Elmer D. Merrill, Arnold Professor of Botany, emeritus, or Ralph W. Chaney, professor of Paleontology at the University of California, is responsible for sending expeditions to bring back and distribute seeds from this "living fossil...
Chaney then fiew to China in March 1948 to study the environment of the Metasequoia. Previous to this, however, the announcement of the discovery appeared in "Science" on February 6. "The manuscript of this had been seen and approved by Chaney before he hopped off to China," Merrill said...
...over the West. Merrill continued, "Chaney is being credited with having introduced the seeds. During the season he was in China all cones had long since fallen and no Metasequoia seeds were available. He spent three days there, took some publicity photographs, and started back. He did bring back two or three small living plants on his return late in March, but even before Chaney left California seedlings of the Metasequoia were actually growing there...
...American Philosophical Society in February 1951, Chaney writes, "Seeds which he (Merrill) received in January 1948 were generously shared with me and others, and were widely planted across North America and in Europe during the ensuing weeks For the first time in nearly a socre of million years, Metasequoia lived again in the Western hemisphere as a result of Merrill's distribution of those seeds...
Seeds of the ancient metasequoia, which previously was known only through fossil remains, have arrived at the Arboretum from China and will be planted immediately to preserve the rare discovery...