In 2021, FONAT had wood samples from two pillars and one panel tested at the United States Forest Service International Programs Wood Identification & Screening Center in Ashland Oregon using their Direct Analysis in Real Time Time-of-Flight mass spectrometer (DART TOFMS). The USFS lab identified the wood as tree species Metasequoia glyptostroboides. This rare tree is endemic to China and verifies the Ting is a unique artifact that originated in China. 

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The Chinese call the tree 水杉 (shuǐshān) which means “water fir” in English. This tree existed only in fossils over 150 million years old until the 1940s discovery of living trees in China. Newspapers here reported the discovery as “redwood from the dawn of time” which led to the common use name “dawn redwood”. Since its discovery, the tree has become something of a Chinese national point of pride and protected under Chinese law. There were only a few thousand naturally growing trees, mostly in central China. The Chinese government made successful efforts to propagate dawn redwood and there are now millions of trees worldwide.