The Bald Cypress

The seed

The leaves
The crazy roots
The bark
The "knees"

The body shape
Seed again
Swamp livin'
One more pic of the gorgeous fruit.

There is a tree that I love, called the Bald Cypress. I could have copied and pasted something off the net here, but that just isn't my style. So lemme tell ya about this cool, cool tree.

It kinda looks like an evergreen at first glance--it has needley looking, feathery leaves. It has a main trunk that is tall and thin, like a pine. But, if you get lucky enough to get close to one, you might find yourself thinking "huh?" You will see that has a very, very peculiar fruit, which looks like a lumpy little globe! They are fantastic, blue and brown and bizzarre.

The trunk has a very rosy hue, and is shaggy and flaking off. This may or may not catch your eye--but hands-down, the neatest thing about the Bald Cypress are its' knees! It has these roots that bulge and grow upwards out of the surrounding areas, all around the tree and far , far away! These have come to be known as their knees. They really do look like knobby, bumpy, scary knees of an old creepy tree person. These could be really bad for your home's plumbing, I am thinking, if you had a Bald Cypress in your yard.

This tree is supposedly unheard of where I live--it is a swamp tree! The knees are usually pictured as protruding up out of the swampy waters of Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, the Carolinas. But we had one by our old house, and tonight, out walking with the boys, I discovered one by us! I was so happy! I wanted the people to be out in their yard, so I could talk to them about their Bald Cypress, and they could think I was a freak, and I would not care. And maybe they would start to love it, if they didn't already.

Maybe you have one near you, and you didn't even know it. Tell me if you see one, ok?