Taxodium mucronatum

Taxodium mucronatum, commonly known as Montezuma bald cypress, Montezuma cypress, or ahuehuete, is a species of Taxodium that is primarily native to Mexico and Guatemala, with a few populations in the southwestern United States. Ahuehuete is derived from the Nahuatl name for the tree, āhuēhuētl, which means "upright drum in water" or "old man of the water." It is a large evergreen or semi-evergreen tree growing to tall and with a trunk of diameter (occasionally much more; see below). The leaves are spirally arranged but twisted at the base to lie in two horizontal ranks, long and broad. The cones are ovoid, long and broad. Unlike bald cypress and pond cypress, Montezuma cypress rarely produces cypress knees from the roots. Trees from the Mexican highlands achieve a notable stoutness. One specimen, the Árbol del Tule in Santa María del Tule, Oaxaca, Mexico, is the stoutest tree in the world with a diameter of . Several other specimens from diameter are known. The second stoutest tree in the world is the Big Baobab, an African baobab. Montezuma cypress is primarily a riparian tree, growing along upland riversides, but can also be found next to springs and marshes. It occurs from , in Mexico mainly in highlands at in altitude. T. mucronatum is very drought-tolerant and fast-growing and favors climates that are rainy throughout the year or at least with high summer rainfall. Taxodium mucronatum is native to much of Mexico as far south as the highlands of southern Mexico. Two disjunct populations exist in the United States. One is in the Rio Grande Valley of southernmost Texas, while the other is in southern New Mexico, near Las Cruces. Within Guatemala, the tree is restricted to Huehuetenango Department. The sabino became the national tree of Mexico in 1910. The tree is sacred to the native peoples of Mexico, and is featured in the Zapotec creation myth. To the Aztecs, the combined shade of an āhuēhuētl and a pōchōtl (Ceiba pentandra) metaphorically represented a ruler's authority.