Bald cypress "knees"

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Leo I think that's where these grafted BC knees for sale come from. IIRC Scott is selling them for Ken Davis who I think is from Illinois.

In the Lower Cache River System, there are 2 large areas that are Wildlife Refuge and National Park, both are protected from collecting. But the Cache River Cypress Swamps cover an area much larger than the 2 protected areas. There is quite a bit of private land in this ecosystem. So if you own land down there, you can collect in that area. PM me contact info, I'd love to maybe buy one, or visit Ken when I get down to the area to visit the family I have down there. (My family have land on a "Ridge", not in the "Bottoms", so no BC on their property, just Timber Rattlers and Liriodendron, neither particularly good for bonsai)

 

[Jeremy]

LOL, thanks for the critique.

The tree has never been styled. The graft is growing for vigor. It was brought in from a different climate so it wasn't touched for the first year. I'll start training this year. Even then it will be a while until things look nice.

My bad, that was a little crass.
Looking at the tree, I feel like the graft was made on the wrong stump, but it's still workable. It's a nice 'trunk'. I'm intrigued. Is the entire piece still living? And how are the knees collected? Is there a root system below the soil or is there a large piece of root underneath? Just curious if you can build a nebari without grafting. And if the entire knee stays alive after removal from the host.

 

[jeanluc83]

The reason cypress form knees might not even be around anymore.

The Trees That Miss The Mammoths

 

[jeanluc83]

In the past cypress may have been driven to a very small area where they survived and adapted. Once conditions became favorable for them to survive in other areas they spread retaining the adaptations needed for the old habitat. The knees may have beneficial for growing in swamps but the trees growing on dryer land are not genetically different enough that they don’t form knees. The result is cypress with knees that aren’t really needed.

 

[Underdog]

My new baby Bald Cypress has a knee

 

[rockm]

Don't think that's a knee. Looks to be a root with a knee possibly beginning. The tops of downward growing roots on in ground trees are common places for knees to form. Keep an eye on it though.

 

[Underdog]

I was half joking but half wondering too. It's buried now as I needed to get this tree in some dirt asap. Buds popping.
Not the best pics but it starts off the trunk and humps up an inch about an inch away from the trunk. Then as you can see it heads back down and forks into 4 roots. Shrug... It would be cool to see it pop out one day in a bonsai pot. Gonna be a while tho.

 

[coppice]

If growing your own BC with knees is your goal, periodic VS chronic flooding will likely bring you home faster.

 

[johng]

If growing your own BC with knees is your goal, periodic VS chronic flooding will likely bring you home faster.

I tend to agree with you...is this just an opinion/theory or do you have some personal experience.

 

[Underdog]

It makes sense to me. I could see it being easily doable in a shallow well draining bonsai pot. Be a while till this guy sees a shallow pot but food for thought. Thanks

 

[Mellow Mullet]

What is VS chronic flooding?

 

[AaronThomas]

This would be a thread grafted knee, yeah. Knees don't grow foliage on their own.

There's a couple on Ebay at the moment..... Kinda not diggin um'.

 

[Underdog]

There's a couple on Ebay at the moment..... Kinda not diggin um'.

Yea, not w/out the tree IMO I'm just hoping for a little bump showing near my trunk one day in the pot.

 

[coppice]

What is VS chronic flooding?

VS (versus). I find bald cypress held in still water for long periods of time, do not do as well as ones dunked for a weekend.

 

[Underdog]

I was puzzled to find this in an Ohio strip mine pond yesterday. Very nice tree! Was looking for it's little brother but none around. It even has knees.

 

[Dav4]

I was puzzled to find this in an Ohio strip mine pond yesterday. Very nice tree! Was looking for it's little brother but none around. It even has knees.

They're very cold hardy but I don't believe they can reproduce naturally in areas with very cold winters.

 

[Underdog]

I can only guess it was planted in the 70s when all this land was "reclaimed" I think they called it, after they got all the coal out.
Gives me new hope for my little guy just starting out in Ohio.

 

[armetisius]

And they can pray . . .
In evolution's grand scheme...it makes sense for it to be a deciduous conifer to do this.
It also makes perfect sense we would have never seen them grow shoots, they haven't needed to yet.Sorce

And this may be the key to this discussion. If you believe the fossil record, we once had tree ferns as tall as most oaks today with fronds longer than the height of two men. They passed from our world due to differing climatic conditions. Also, if you believe what we are told about the changes that have occurred in atmospheric make up, you realize we will never see the conditions that lead to "deciduous conifers" to begin with. That I know of, there are no deciduous conifers that are not ancient species. These were formed when the air was heavy with CO2, atmospheric water vapor over the roof, all the conditions that produced the garden/jungle like conditions we associate with primeval Earth. But if you look at them as a whole all the deciduous conifers have something "strange" going on--fused needles forming blade like leaves on Gingko but plum like fruits; knees on cypress; all that odd mess with Dawn Redwood; etc. ALL things we are not intended to understand because we have no point of reference to compare them to now. Not a case of "yet" but a matter of "anymore".
If it weren't for all the predators/insects that came with the period, and difficulty breathing due to elevated CO2, I would have loved this period's garden like environment.

 

[jeanluc83]

I was puzzled to find this in an Ohio strip mine pond yesterday. Very nice tree! Was looking for it's little brother but none around. It even has knees.

I believe the ancient range extended into Canada before the last ice age when they were pushed south. Maybe they are starting to spread back into their natural range.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

In Illinois, the natural reproduction limit seems to be about Springfield IL, a little north of an east-west line through Saint Louis, MO. Just from killing first year seedlings in my back yard, I think with Bald Cypress, seed needs heat to sprout, often not sprouting until late June, sometime early July. In my yard, north of Chicago, south of Milwaukee, seedlings sprouted in late June are not winter hardy by autumn. Seems growing season is too short to mature young seedlings. Usually by 2nd or 3rd summer, seedlings are fully winter hardy in the ground in my area. The issue is the seed seem to need 80 F heat to sprout, which means in northern areas they just don't sprout in time to harden off in spring. Plants older than 2 years send out foliage between the time the maples leaf out and before local oaks leaf out, not as much heat needed to leaf out as to sprout seed. So once established seedlings are just as hardy as adults. But this can explain the natural distribution of the species.

Knees, the article posted by @armetisius doesn't mention bald cypress, but I could speculate the knees would make it difficult for mastodons and mammoths or even herbivorous dinosaurs to walk around the tree and eat foliage. - but that is shear speculation on my part. AND if this were the "purpose" of knees, why is it that knees don't appear normally until trees are over 25 or more years old. One reference I read said knees don't develop until tree is over 70 years old, but then I drove past a hedgerow of BC that was clearly man planted, and the house they were near was no more than 40 years old, trees looked 40 years old, and yet they had well developed knees. So obviously they can make knees younger than 70 years old. But if the knees were to prevent predation by large herbivores, the knees should appear sooner, not later in the BC life cycle. They definitely are a trait of only fully mature trees. So who knows why they make knees?