Whether pond or just swamp cypress, it's bald now

We, like Encyclopedia Britannica, call the Pond Cypress, Taxodium distichum variety imbricarium (not imbricatum). This makes the connection between it and the rather similar Bald (or Swamp) Cypress, Taxodium distichum variety distichum, clear. Others prefer to treat it as a separate species, called Taxodium ascendens, and some don't even recognise it as separate entity.

It is one of the cypresses with rusty orange leaves in autumn that are shed in winter, hence the 'baldness'. Pond Cypress is often a smaller tree than the usual Bald Cypress, and with leaves more tightly wrapped and overlapping around the small branches (imbricate, despite the misspelling of the botanical name which I gather we should accept). 

These (above) are the young leaves of a Pond Cypress, noting that in some older branches they spread out more and resemble those of the Bald (Swamp) Cypress in the next picture.

And for completeness, here is a picture of leaves fallen from the Montezuma Cypress, Taxodium mucronatum, the 'other' species in the genus. 

Depending on your taxonomic perspective, these may be three, two or even one species of Taxodium. We use the two species system at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and, as you see, grow both varieties of Taxodium distichum and the Montezuma Cypress. The Montezuma Cypress is, as I've reported before, the tallest tree in the Gardens is a Montezuma Cypress. That's why my photograph is of a fallen leaf...

Apart from national pride there isn't much between even these two species. The Pond Cypress and the Bald Cypress are from the southeast of USA where they occupy pretty much the same range, while Montezuma Cypress occurs in Mexico, Guatemala and just a little in southern Texas.

We'll stick with the Pond Cypress designation for the species I've photographed here. It's a relatively new planting, sourced from Yamina Rare Plants in Monbulk a few years ago, so presumably grown from material collected under that name.

The top picture is in the first week of June, with our Pond Cypress the orange pyramid behind the new Sensory Garden. The picture above is taken a month earlier, in full leaf. If they look familiar it's because I've posted them on Instagram and Twitter as part of my daily photographic record of the ever changing landscapes of our two botanic gardens (Melbourne and Cranbourne). 

Now, of course, it has fewer leaves, looking like this a few weeks ago: