THIS is my Saturday column from a couple of weeks ago which hasn't made it onto the website, but I am still getting asked about it. The ending is a bit vague because we are trying to get the necessary orders in place, but frustratingly, these things develop as slowly as the strawberry tree grows...

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DARLINGTON Arts Centre may have closed, its building derelict and decaying, but two unusual trees are putting on lively performances in its grounds this autumn.

The supporting cast is the Irish Strawberry Tree, its delicate pinky-red bells tinkling in the breeze. The star of show is the Dawn Redwood, slender and straight like a leading lady, its leaves turning a fragile coppery colour - like dawn's rosy fingers creeping across the morning sky - before the fall.

The Dawn Redwood (metasequoia glyptostroboides, to give it its proper name) is on the "critically endangered" list compiled by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It is just one level above being declared extinct in the wild. It is in good company because also critically endangered are the Turtlefat, a shrub from Puerto Rico; the mother-in-law's cushion, a plump and prickly cactus; and the Bastard Quiver Tree from South Africa.

I don't know the marital status of the unfortunate Quiver Tree's parents, but the Dawn Redwood (right) was discovered in central China in the 1940s.

Botanists from around the world descended to collect seeds to preserve it; the Chinese, after the 1949 revolution, responded by logging it.

Kew Garden, in London, received some seeds, and now there seem to be about 30 or so Dawn Redwoods ornamenting stately gardens in this country.

The late Ada Radford, a founder of the Durham Wildlife Trust who was head of biology when the Arts Centre was a teacher training college, planted a Kew seed about 50 years ago in a position of prominence. Now the tree grows as if in a spotlight, pencil-thin and elegant just inside the entrance.

The evergreen Irish Strawberry Tree is much older, possibly even dating back to the construction of the college in the 1870s.

It is not as rare as the Dawn Redwood, but Fal Sarker, the local botanist who pointed out the trees to me this week, has not seen another in Darlington.

It comes from the Mediterranean - it is an emblem of Madrid - although a biological quirk allows it to grow on the warm southern Irish coast. It flowers in late autumn: white in the Mediterranean, pinky-red in counties Kilkenny and Durham.

After the flowers, a bobbly berry of a fruit forms, which takes a year to ripen, turning from green to strawberry red.

It is not juicy and sweet like a strawberry, though. Some people say the Strawberry Tree's strawberries are bland. Some say they are bitter. Some say they ferment on the branches and make you a bit tizzy.

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder said the Strawberry Tree's Latin name - arbutus unedo - came from "unum edo", meaning "I eat one", probablymeaning you don't go back for a second helping.

"We all need to make sure that these trees are looked after for future generations, and also for us, to enjoy, " said Fal.

We're seeing what can be done. . .