Did you know that some trees have knees? I discovered this on Friday, as anyone who is friends with me on Facebook will know. Before going to Hampton Court, Hubster and went for a stroll in Bushy Park. There's a fenced off garden with a Taxodium Walk, lined with baldcypresses, Taxodium distichum. And they have these weird knobbly bits:
I'd thought they were a quaint new-age sculpture, but no, they're part of the tree:
Turns out they're called cypress knees. And as their main function appears to be stabilisation it makes sense to see them where the trees are in waterlogged soil (as I imagine the ground next to the pond is). I wouldn't trust the majority of the Wikipedia article - the final paragraph deserves attention of the mocking variety on my other blog - but the sheer number of Google search results involving the cool carvings you can do with these knobbly bits at least confirms that they are indeed called cypress knees...
I'd thought they were a quaint new-age sculpture, but no, they're part of the tree:
Turns out they're called cypress knees. And as their main function appears to be stabilisation it makes sense to see them where the trees are in waterlogged soil (as I imagine the ground next to the pond is). I wouldn't trust the majority of the Wikipedia article - the final paragraph deserves attention of the mocking variety on my other blog - but the sheer number of Google search results involving the cool carvings you can do with these knobbly bits at least confirms that they are indeed called cypress knees...
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