Saturday 28 February 2015

Seasons 4: Canary Wharf, London

Move your cursor over the image below, and it should change to another image of the same scene in a different season. (If it doesn't work, check that your browser has JavaScript enabled.)


Base photo:23 July 2014
Mouseover photo:27 February 2015
Approx. coordinates:51.50°N, 0.02°W

The trees in the foreground are dawn redwoods in Jubilee Park – an island of greenery amidst the skyscrapers of Canary Wharf. The dawn redwood is a fascinating tree. It was believed to be extinct and known only from ancient fossils, until a small stand was "discovered" in 1944 in the forests of Central China. (I put "discovered" because the tree was well-known to local villagers, without whose the help the botanists may never have discovered it.) The tree's morphology has not changed for 65 million years, which means that the trees in Jubilee Park are essentially identical to those in Cretaceous-period forests, when Tyrannosaurus roamed the earth.

The dawn redwood is also one of a very few conifers which shed their leaves in autumn. If it were evergreen, as most conifers are, the two photos above would have looked very similar.

The building in the background belongs to a law firm where I worked for four years.

2 comments:

Rara Avis said...

Preparations for the tree app going well, then?

Sroyon said...

Not really. Been neglecting it of late. :(