Friday, May 1, 2009

Tricky trees

Bald cypress.
Dawn redwood.

2 comments:

amarilla said...

On a point SE of the Terrace Bridge in Prospect Park, there's one of these tricky trees with knees so abundant around the water's edge you risk tripping over them and falling into the lake with every step you take. Well, at least I do. I wonder what that Bald Cypress gains from having so many little knobs growing out of the ground.

Matthew said...

That baldy is where I took the top picture. Some of those knees are quite far away from the trunk, aren't they? I snipped the following from the web: the knees are "pneumatophores", "cone-shaped extensions of the root system protruding from the ground. Pneumatophores are thought to function as the trees' means of obtaining oxygen for the roots during flooded conditions."