The Stanton Avenue Bald Cypress

The city gave this bald cypress three titles at once. In March 2023 Pittsburgh's Shade Tree Commission listed it as a Giving Tree, for the wildlife it supports and its part in the city's ecosystem; as a Specimen Tree, a notable example of its species on public property; and as a Tree of a Kind, the category for trees unusual in appearance, origin or growth. The last one is easy to believe. Bald cypress belongs to the swamps and river bottoms of the American South, where it stands in water for months at a time, and this one grows on Stanton Avenue on the Highland Park side of the city. It is a conifer that behaves like an oak: the soft needles turn copper in autumn and fall, and from late November it stands bare until spring. Finding it takes a little care. The program lists it on the 6300 block of Stanton Avenue, but the address at the city's own map point reads closer to 6000, and our pin follows the map. The record says it is on public ground without saying whether that is park or street. It is about 1.2 kilometres from the Highland Park ginkgo and black locust, both city champions, which makes the three a reasonable walk. Nobody has published an age, girth or height for it. If it stands outside your window and you know its story, tell us.