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Knees with very little taper A bald cypress exhibiting tapered knees. A cypress knee is a distinctive structure forming above the roots of a cypress tree of any of various species of the subfamily Taxodioideae, such as the bald cypress. Their function is unknown, but they are generally seen on trees growing in swamps.
Taxodium distichum (baldcypress, [3] [4] [5] bald-cypress, [6] bald cypress, swamp cypress; French: cyprès chauve; cipre in Louisiana) is a deciduous conifer in the family Cupressaceae. It is native to the southeastern United States. Hardy and tough, this tree adapts to a wide range of soil types, whether wet, salty, dry, or swampy.
Bald cypress is the state tree of Louisiana. Bald cypress, often festooned with Spanish moss, of southern swamps are another tourist attraction. They can be seen at Big Cypress National Preserve in Florida. Bald cypress "knees" are often sold as souvenirs, made into lamps, or carved to make folk art. [35]
Unlike bald cypress and pond cypress, Montezuma cypress rarely produces cypress knees from the roots. [3] Trees from the Mexican highlands achieve a notable stoutness. One specimen, the Árbol del Tule in Santa María del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico, is the stoutest tree in the world with a diameter of 11.42 m (37.5 ft). Several other specimens from 3 ...
Members of the subfamily Taxodioideae produce woody above-ground structures, known as cypress knees, that project upward from their horizontal roots. One hypothesis suggests that these structures function as pneumatophores, facilitating gas exchange in waterlogged soils.
Their rapid, thick growth means they are sometimes used to achieve privacy, but such use can result in disputes with neighbours whose own property becomes overshadowed. [3] The tree is a hybrid of Monterey cypress (Cupressus macrocarpa) and Nootka cypress (Cupressus nootkatensis). It is almost always sterile, and is propagated mainly by cuttings.
Specialized bald cypress roots, termed knees, are sold as souvenirs, lamp bases and carved into folk art. Native Americans used the flexible roots of white spruce for basketry. Tree roots can heave and destroy concrete sidewalks and crush or clog buried pipes. [49]
Taxodium ascendens, also known as pond cypress, [2] is a deciduous conifer of the genus Taxodium, native to North America.Many botanists treat it as a variety of bald cypress, Taxodium distichum (as T. distichum var. imbricatum) rather than as a distinct species, but it differs in habitat, occurring mainly in still blackwater rivers, ponds and swamps without silt-rich flood deposits.