Bald Cypress with knees

[pkTheory]

From what I have noticed, if you are looking to grow knees on your Taxodium distichum, first you need a rootbound tree with enough space to push the knees up around the trunk in the pot. Secondly you should submerge your pot pulling out of water periodically to allow soil to dry some. This represents the rise and receeding of the water source the tree is naturally found near.

 

[Mellow Mullet]

Here are some pictures of my dad's cypress bonsai with knees:

2007 just starting to form:



2012:

 

[bonsaibp]

Very cool.

 

[Danilo]

How long was the tree in that pot as of 2007?

 

[Mellow Mullet]

It has always been in a pot as it was grown from seed and received regular repottings. I think it is at least 25 years old. I'll ask my dad tomorrow.

 

[Mellow Mullet]

Visited my dad this afternoon. The cypress was grown from seed since 1987. It stays in a tub of water during the summer and is removed in the winter. Regular repottinngs.

Hope It helps,

John

 

[darkwaterdevil]

the knees are probably cause from the same as mangroves. a lack of oxygen in the soil. so they pop out to get into the air

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

a 1300 year old bald cypress, broken top, not exactly flat top

For what ever it is worth, I love bald cypress. These pictures are from a 2002 winter canoe trip on the lower Cache River, in southern Illinois. The 'big tree' in all these images is the oldest documented bald cypress in Illinois, estimated to be 1300 years old. The knees seem to start 1/8 of a mile away from the tree. Winter is the best time to paddle a canoe in these waters, no mosquitoes and no cottonmouth, copper head, or timber rattlers. A warm jacket and a flask with wisky, and you have a great day trip.

note that the branches arch upward where they insert into the trunk, then flatten out, but not quite horizontal. Also note the occasional secondary trunk shooting up vertically from a main lower branch. This tree must have been blasted by lightning and broken by wind storms many times in its history. But give the way the branches leave the trunk on this one a thought as you style your own trees.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

knee examples from the wilds - and Flat Top really? somewhat a thread hijack.

Thought I'd add a shot of knees, the water was about 3 feet deep where the picture was taken.

Also a shot of the backwater on the Cache, this open area was bordered with a grove of trees. The bigger cypresses in the rest of the pictures were estimated to be about 500 years old, give or take a century.

Note that only one or two trees are actually approach flat topped. Also look at the angle the branches leave the trunk. They do not droop like some spruces. In my experience, I have seen more an informal upright, even on trees with many centuries of age. Broken tops are normal, almost all show some sort of storm damage. So irregular is more the typical wild style. But then again, most of the big cypresses I've seen have been in Illinois, which is quite a distance north of the Florida and Louisiana swamps.

Thank you for inspiring me to go look at these decade old photos, brought back nice memories.

 

[Poink88]

Thanks for sharing. Great reference & inspiration for styling for sure.

 

[Si Nguyen]

?... Also look at the angle the branches leave the trunk. They do not droop like some spruces. ...]

This is what I have been saying for 15 years! But nobody listened! The exit angle is the main difference between deciduous trees and conifer trees , with regards to bonsai styling in the "naturalistic" style. After the exit angle, the branches can go any which way, up or down.

Thanks for the pictures of these old trees Leo. I had no idea they are still found so far north as Illinois. I'd love to see these old trees someday.

 

[rockm]

"The exit angle is the main difference between deciduous trees and conifer trees , with regards to bonsai styling in the "naturalistic" style."

But this species behaves like both...

 

[johng]

"The exit angle is the main difference between deciduous trees and conifer trees , with regards to bonsai styling in the "naturalistic" style."

But this species behaves like both...

I agree with this Rockm...I have seen lots of BC that do have drooping branches...especially the lowest ones on the trunk. However, there is certainly a large percentage that also tend to have branches that leave the trunk at an angle greater than 90...very typically on younger trees or trees that have been severely damaged and forced to regrow new branches.

perhaps this just gives us more latitude when it comes to styling

John

 

[rockm]

FWIW, I "collected" a large BC trunk at a nursery this summer that is a weeping cultivar of BC. It's branches tend to droop a lot. The nurseryman that sold me the tree said it is a naturally-occurring cultivar from N.C. that someone noticed and cloned for the trade.

I have no idea how that will translate into bonsai scale however. I'm in the process of regrowing all branches after a drastic chop at the nursery six months ago.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

I agree with this Rockm...I have seen lots of BC that do have drooping branches...especially the lowest ones on the trunk. However, there is certainly a large percentage that also tend to have branches that leave the trunk at an angle greater than 90...very typically on younger trees or trees that have been severely damaged and forced to regrow new branches.

perhaps this just gives us more latitude when it comes to styling

John

I was thinking about 'Flat Top' as a style for Bald Cypress, and it did not agree with what I've seen, so I went to pictures of Bald Cypress from Louisiana and Florida, and the answer occurred to me. This also addresses the drooping branches. In Illinois, I am near or at the northern limit for Cypress Dome development. It is far too cold here for Spanish moss (Tillandsia) to grow. If you look at a southern big swamp cypress with a flat top, it is festooned with tons of Spanish moss. I do mean literally hundreds of pounds of moss. Especially when wet with rain, the weight of the moss very well could bend branches down and flatten out the tops of the trees by spreading the branches. Left to its own devices, it looks like a bald cypress would take a broom shape, or a flame shape with a central leader. The weight of the moss brings the branches down from the upward angle. Storms take off the top leader. The result is the crown ends up being a rounded low dome, not a flat top. The better the Spanish moss grows in your area, the flatter the top of the tree will look. Also bald cypress growing in the open, such as the 1300 yr old tree above, have heavy storm damage. Bolt straight trunk, then the broken top and the canopy actually made from secondary uprights coming from lower branches. Those growing in groves, or well developed stand, such as the cypress domes, will have less, and be more regular in form, more vase shaped as the branches have to reach for light.

So how you see a bald cypress depends on whether you are far enough south to get the epiphytes, like Tillandsia (Spanish moss) to grow and whether the tree is in a stand or out in the open. Interesting dynamic between location and form.

 

[rockm]

Nah. Don't think Spanish moss has any bearing on flat top development. It isn't all that heavy, even when wet. Anyway, it grows mostly on old specimens that have long since set heavy branching. It is not as common on younger trees, so even if it did weigh branches down enough to alter their direction, conditions don't seem ideal for it forming on them. It can, however, act as kind of a "sail" in hurricane winds that contribute to a tree's snapping in half.

Storm damage and internal rot (look up pecky cypress) has much much more to do with how older trees look. Stereum taxodii, is a fungus that causes a brown pocket rot that attacks the heartwood of living trees, usually from the crown down to the roots.

The apex branches of Flat Top BCs are usually not horizontally-oriented, but are usually formed by upward growing branches that angle across the apex. BC are capable of all kinds of mature variation. It depends largely on local soil, water and wind.

 

[Leo in N E Illinois]

Nah. Don't think Spanish moss has any bearing on flat top development. It isn't all that heavy, even when wet. Anyway, it grows mostly on old specimens that have long since set heavy branching. It is not as common on younger trees, so even if it did weigh branches down enough to alter their direction, conditions don't seem ideal for it forming on them. It can, however, act as kind of a "sail" in hurricane winds that contribute to a tree's snapping in half.

Storm damage and internal rot (look up pecky cypress) has much much more to do with how older trees look. Stereum taxodii, is a fungus that causes a brown pocket rot that attacks the heartwood of living trees, usually from the crown down to the roots.

The apex branches of Flat Top BCs are usually not horizontally-oriented, but are usually formed by upward growing branches that angle across the apex. BC are capable of all kinds of mature variation. It depends largely on local soil, water and wind.

Spanish moss acting as a 'sail', certainly rings true to me as a factor in creating wind damage. And I do agree that wind is the main cause of the bald cypress look. Spanish moss doesn't grow in my area at all, so I can't test my theory. And you are right, most images I see from down south only show moss on older trees.

Wind, Lightning and Rot do sound like the top forces shaping the bald cypress.

 

[johng]

3 general variations of natural Flat-tops

I have recognized three general variations of the flat-top look in BC in nature...of course this is only anecdotal and very general.

First...younger trees(relative) growing in a forest situation will grow above the canopy of the other trees and naturally form a flat apex...much like the tree in this picture...please note that the other trees that were in this forest were harvested and this was tree left behind. As rockm pointed out you can note that the branches all leave the trunk at upward angle.

As I am typically interested in creating old looking trees this is not a form I have tried to reproduce much in bonsai...


The second variation is just the natural and "ancient" form of the tree...and may often be seen growing isolated from other trees...more like this...there is typically little or no apparent damage.

or this...
(its possible this tree was damaged at the top but when I was close enough to see the damage was not apparent)


The third variation I have recognized is the damaged tree...typically this is the variation that I strive for with some of the larger stumps I have collected over the last couple of years. The biggest challenge of large collected material is the transition between the large cutbacks and the new apex branches. I have one now that I am working on this week that I will try to post some pics or videos of when its finished later this week....still lots of wiring to do

or

Thanks...John

 

[johng]

horizontal branches...

As you can see here branches can and do naturally growing at a declining angle...

 

[bonsaibp]

Thought I'd add a shot of knees, the water was about 3 feet deep where the picture was taken.

Also a shot of the backwater on the Cache, this open area was bordered with a grove of trees. The bigger cypresses in the rest of the pictures were estimated to be about 500 years old, give or take a century.

Note that only one or two trees are actually approach flat topped. Also look at the angle the branches leave the trunk. They do not droop like some spruces. In my experience, I have seen more an informal upright, even on trees with many centuries of age. Broken tops are normal, almost all show some sort of storm damage. So irregular is more the typical wild style. But then again, most of the big cypresses I've seen have been in Illinois, which is quite a distance north of the Florida and Louisiana swamps.

Thank you for inspiring me to go look at these decade old photos, brought back nice memories.

View attachment 29681 View attachment 29682View attachment 29683 View attachment 29686 View attachment 29685

I'd like to be flipping a jig at the base of those things.....