The Bald Cypress of Via del Pozzo

Woody spikes up to two metres tall are coming out of the ground around this tree. They are called pneumatophores, or cypress knees, and a bald cypress grows them when its roots are sitting in water: the working theory is that they help the root system breathe, though botanists have argued about their function for a century and still do. In a Louisiana swamp they are ordinary. On a street beside a Modena hospital they are strange enough that a local feature writer called this tree a vegliardo solitario, a solitary old man, and the knees are the reason to make the trip. It is one of the thirty trees in the comune's own 2015 census of monumental specimens, listed simply as the taxodium of Via del Pozzo. Beyond that, the record is thin and we will not pad it. No girth, no height, no age, no street number: neither source gives any of them, so our pin marks Via del Pozzo near the Policlinico rather than the trunk, and you may have to walk a little of the street. If you find it, a photo and a house number would fix this page.