This tree grows as though it remembers the Louisiana wetlands its species comes from, even landlocked in a Lyon park more than eight thousand kilometres away. Taxodium distichum is one of the few conifers that sheds its needles every autumn, and where it grows in standing water, it sends up woody knees, called pneumatophores, that poke above the surface to bring oxygen to submerged roots, a trait this specimen displays even without the flooded ground its Gulf Coast relatives depend on. A dendrological survey recorded its girth at 5.45 metres a metre above ground and its height at just over 30 metres, among the largest measured trees anywhere in the park's arboretum, with a deeply fluted, buttressed trunk in excellent health. No source gives it a specific planting date, so its age is estimated here from the park's own founding in the 1850s rather than documented directly, but a tree of this size, in a species not known for exceptionally fast growth, is a serious candidate for one of the arboretum's oldest original plantings.
From people who stood here
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Getting there
Parc de la Tête d'Or, near the lake, 69006 Lyon
You can recognise it by its deeply fluted, buttressed trunk, 5.45 metres round and over 30 metres tall, among the largest in the arboretum. It stands near the lake in Parc de la Tete d'Or.
10 min walk from Masséna metro station (Line A)
Autumn colour
November, when its needles turn copper and drop, the one month it truly looks like the Louisiana wetlands it comes from
The line is our estimate of how much there is to see, not a measurement. Typical for this species where this tree stands; exact weeks shift with the year.
Sources
Where the facts on this page come from. The story was written with AI from these sources, and readers who know the tree correct it.
