I can understand how what I wrote would cause confusion. I over-explain things. Here's what I want to convey.
The difference in flooded roots and not flooded in
@just.wing.it 's post is very pronounced. I was able to correctly deduce that the tree had been sitting in water.
The first photo shows normal hairy roots. The second photo shows fat, white, water-adapted roots.
Those water-adapted roots will have developed small air channels to continuously bring oxygen to the ends of the roots.
As to the lopsided growth I mentioned. When a bald cypress is submerged in water, the roots fatten up as air channels are developed. If the flood level is to the top of the soil or higher, this development can be seen in the tree's nebari. If the pre-flooding nebari is unbalanced, the flood-fattened nebari can be worse. This has the potential to take nebari problems from mild to severe.
Below is my example. Took the photo this morning.
A few years ago, I put the tree in a fairly well draining pot right after I collected it. The long root on the left developed "sunburn" (as some of us here tend to call it). The upper tissue of the root died exposing the deadwood for us to see.
In Spring 2017, I repotted the tree to a non-draining, 7-inch deep, restaurant bus tub. I kept the water level as high as I could. As you can see, the tree is potted very high in the pot. The girth of the roots was much less than what you see, below. On the left of the photo, you can see two wounds, sunburns, on the upper face of the long root. Prior to flooding the tree, the tree had made no attempt to roll living tissue over the deadwood. Today, all of that dark orange bark has swollen and has almost healed the damage. Further out from the trunk, the second area of exposed deadwood is also healing, though at a slower pace.
The root on the right was just a regular root coming off the trunk at the soil line. Now it has a bulge where it meets the trunk. The entire bulge grew last year. Before flooding, the root on the right simply continued on its way to the trunk at the same angle you can see below. It met the trunk with no significance.
By the way, that bulge is starting to grow upwards. I may have a knee forming after only one growing season in a flooded pot. This would be a very rare occurrance for me, so your mileage may vary.
Next, you can see orange splits in the trunk. This is the beginning of what I hope to be a significant basal flare.
Finally, my use of the word "lopsided" to describe nebari. The back of this tree had no surface roots when I flooded the tree. The back of the tree still has no surface roots. The trunk just goes straight into the soil with no change in taper. The two big roots in the photo are the only roots at the soil line. This is what I meant when I said that a good radial array of roots will produce a better base. This pre-flood tree had a noticeable problem with just two surface roots. Now, the flaw is a serious design problem. I expect it will only get worse.
I compare the before and after situations to acne. A blackhead is a noticeable flaw, while a red bulging zit is a serious issue.
I can't wait to see what happens when I flood this tree again, yet do nothing to correct the root flare. Maybe the tree will fatten up some submerged roots around the back. Maybe not. If it DOES fatten up submerged roots and corrects the design flaw, that'd be a new technique to put in my tool chest.
Good luck!
