Lichuan

Lichuan is a county-level metropolis of the Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, in southwestern Hubei province, People's Republic of China, placed 52 kilometres west of Enshi City, the prefecture seat. It borders Chongqing Municipality to the southwest, west, and north. It has approximately 870,000 inhabitants. Lichuan is believed to be the vicinity of maximum of the evidently developing Metasequoia glyptostroboides timber in life. The genus Metasequoia, related to the massive redwoods of North America, became first described as a fossil from the Mesozoic Era in 1941.

But in 1943 a small stand of an unidentified tree changed into found in Modaoxi , presently known as Moudao Town, in Lichuan County, by way of Zhan Wang. After the stop of the World War II, this tree species changed into officially defined because the best living species of Metasequoia, and given the clinical name Metasequoia glyptostroboides. In 1948 the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University sent an day trip to Lichuan to gather seeds and, quickly after, seedling trees were disbursed to diverse universities and arboreta worldwide for growth trials.