Why have botanists in Texas been assuming for so long that the central Texas trees are the same species as the swamp Cypresses further East, when all evidence points to them being the Northern end of the range of the Montezuma Cypress trees further South in the Rio Grande Valley, continuing all the way South to Oaxaca?
The lack of true "cypress knees", the stout spreading habit, and the much smaller cones point to this population being the same species known as Taxodium mucronatum, rather than Taxodium distichum which grows in swamps further East.


In this episode we also take a look at the "Chatterbox Orchids" - Epipactis gigantea - which is pollinated by the predatory, beneficial insect known as "hoverflies", the same as quite a few other species in the genus Epipactis.

Schoenocaulon texanum,
Echinocereus reichenbachii,
Stillingia texana,
and more.

Thanks to my friend Matt Welch for getting us access to this property.

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