another view

last photo to show comparison with one of the typical Taxodiums growing there.

if you are wishing to confirm that all are taxodium.. the pix arent good enough ...

if you are sure of that.. and are just showing variation of form .. neat

i have 5 i bought from ... get this.. big lot.. a decade ago ...

i would presume seed grown ... as no two are alike ...

thx for the pix and the observation ....

ken

Ken, they ARE Taxodium. The typical one is distichum. Are there variations to cover the characteristics of the second tree?
The person emailing the photos is a tree expert but thought perhaps it may be a different species instead of a variant.

carol, your pics make it plain to me that those are baldcypresses, so no sweat. Some can weep a bit -- might be just a random variant, or a selection. Somebody from the south might pop in w/the names of the weeping selections.

I was working in extreme east Kentucky once & saw an enormous old BC growing like a wide-spread, branchy oak instead of the typical upright form.

Beng, thank you for your reply which is quite helpful. I've notified my friend about this post so he can follow along. Perhaps others have seen and photographed similar trees.

The borough of Swarthmore PA has planted many nice trees which is the location of these conifers.

Looks like it's putting out an unusually heavy crop of pollen cones.

Resin

Good ole Swarthmore. Yeah, the town has many nice trees and gardens. I agree that is a pretty and somewhat unusual looking form of branching.

This post was edited by davidrt28 on Thu, Sep 12, 13 at 15:42

Funny. I did similar thing years ago when I found this taxodium tree that got me wondering where it came from.

I sent the cones to the director of the arboretum that collected taxodium seeds from all over the places and he said that the seed size are in the between Montezuma and Bald Cypress. That campus is going to look cool in 10 years when all of those taxodium trees get big.

That's very interesting. What a wonderfully shaped tree! Around here with all the moisture all Taxodium are loaded with knees, like a small army of gnomes surrounding the trees.

Carol,

There is no knees on this tree. Montezuma and central Texas bald cypress do not produce knees.

There are huge Bald cypress in Spicewood, Texas nearby Lake Travis with no knees.

In the middle of Texas...

Love that picture Lou! Is this along the fall line in Texas? Amazing state for how the geography changes - no other state bridges the West & East like that. If you have a higher res. version, I'd love to see it.

Lou, thank you for the photos and reply. I've not seen your species so was unaware of their not forming knees.
Do you think our 30+ " of surplus rainfall this year will encourage new knees to pop up?

If it works (you gotta have Flash installed), here's a baldcypress at Hagerstown City Park MD. A fair number are planted there around the pond (decades ago). This one & others at the park were the seed-source of thirteen planted along my border stream.

Here is a link that might be useful: Baldcypress at City Park

Carol, excessive rainfall will promote extra growth of knees from yours but will it have effect on central Texas BCs? Who knows? We have rather shallow topsoil on top of solid bedrock and they are primarily found along spring feed creek/rivers and their roots look more like lava flow type. I've been to Stephen F Austin State University in deep east Texas (mostly sandy soil) to check them out. I don't see any knees on the largest Montezuma Cypress tree at all. I didn't see any either at Dallas Arboretum which is even bigger. Look for Krause Spring, Frio River, Quadalupe River, Comel River and so on in central Texas.

David, I don't know about high resolution picture if you're referring to the first picture. It was taken during 2006 or 2007 in Midlothian (south of Dallas). The original picture is lost to dead computer... Looks like Brazo River is the clean break between west and east for Bald cypress on their own to adapt to its environment. Someone told me that he went kayaking on that river and did not find a bald cypress at all.

The 'species' (i.e., seedgrown, non-cultivar) T. distichums I see around have a lot of variation in form and habit, just as in your pictures.