Bald Cypress Seeds

You know I love my bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) tree, right? Well I was looking at it yesterday...

...and noticed something exciting: cones!

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Here's a closer look:

Most of them are at the top of the tree, but I guessed that the lower ones -- if there had been any -- already fell to the ground. I wanted to find some!

The trouble is...

...there's bamboo planted underneath the tree, which made looking for cones and/or seeds nearly impossible.

Since the tree's branches spread outward quite a bit though, there were areas outside of the bamboo zone that could contain seeds...

...but these areas are difficult to search visually when you don't know what you're really looking for.

Then I started spotting them!

That round thing in the middle of the image is a cone!

Here's one that's still somewhat intact, and shows that they're not conical at all:

The seeds are packed in there and triangular -- I guess that's the best way to describe them.

I found several once I knew what I was looking for:

I read that these need cold stratification and/or submergence in water in order to germinate, so that's what I plan to do with them. I also read that they grow almost 3' (0.9m) in their first season, which is pretty impressive!

If all goes well I may have some seedlings to distribute to friends next year...

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