BOTANICAL AND ECOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS
SPECIES: Taxodium mucronatum | Montezuma Baldcypress 



GENERAL BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS : 
Montezuma baldcypress is a large, native, semideciduous to evergreen
tree [2,4,12].  Mature height usually ranges from 60 to 100 feet (18-30
m), but the oldest trees can be much taller: a record height of 170 feet
(51.8 m) has been reported for the Tree of Montezuma (Chapultepec Park,
Mexico City) which was estimated as 700 years old [12].  The Montezuma
baldcypress is better known for its massive, convoluted trunk than for
its height.  El Arbor del Tule (Oaxaca, Mexico), an individual at least
1,000 years old and possibly much older, is more than 50 feet (15 m) in
diameter and has a circumference of 117.6 feet (35.84 m).  Perimeter
measures that include the bays and promontories of the buttressed trunk
exceed 150 feet (45 m) [8].

Montezuma baldcypress has a broad, spreading crown with strong,
horizontal branches and delicate, weeping branchlets.  The leaves are
0.24 to 0.48 inch (6-12 mm) long.  The staminate strobili are borne in
long, slender spikes.  The ovulate cones are subglobose and 0.59 to 0.98
inch (1.5-2.5 cm) in diameter.  The bark is shreddy.  The roots of trees
growing in standing water often send up conical projections ("knees")
[12].  Trees that experience periodic drying out, such as those growing
along stream courses, apparently do not form knees [2].


RAUNKIAER LIFE FORM : 
   Phanerophyte


REGENERATION PROCESSES : 
Montezuma baldcypress reproduces primarily by seed.  Seeds are released
upon cone ripening, and germinate as soon as moisture conditions permit.
The seeds are only viable for a short period of time.  No special
treatment is needed for greenhouse germination [2].  No vegetative
reproduction has been reported for Montzuma baldcypress, although
baldcypress will produce stump sprouts.


SITE CHARACTERISTICS : 
Montezuma baldcypress usually occurs on moist soils along streams, or on
low, poorly drained sites [2,5].  It is drought tolerant when
established; colonies of Montezuma baldcypress grow along seasonally dry
stream courses in the lower Sonoran Desert in Mexico [4].


SUCCESSIONAL STATUS : 
NO-ENTRY


SEASONAL DEVELOPMENT : 
The staminate and pistillate cones of Montezuma baldcypress open in
February [15].  The cones of baldcypress ripen in October after
flowering in March or April; it is likely that Montezuma baldcypress
follows a similar pattern [18].  Montezuma baldcypress is often
described as evergreen even though it normally sheds all of its leaves
when new growth emerges in the spring.  Leaflessness in the Texas
populations is more often associated with drought and/or low
temperatures rather than with season [2].  Other populations of
Montezuma baldcypress may shed some or all of their leaves in the fall
and remain leafless through the winter [4].

Related categories for Species: Taxodium mucronatum | Montezuma Baldcypress