The Lake and the Bald Cypresses
Ricardo Velázquez Bosco, layout (1843 to 1923) · 1887
In front of the pavilion a small lake spreads out below a stone staircase, and rising straight out of the water stand several tall trees with feathery leaves and strange swollen trunks. They are bald cypresses, natives of the swamps of the southern United States, planted here when the pavilion was built as part of the exotic display. In autumn their needles turn rust orange before dropping, which is why they are called bald, and around their bases you can see the woody knobs, called knees, that the species pushes up through the water. A fountain plays in the middle of the lake, and ducks, geese and turtles share it with the reflections of the glass.
The lake was dug at the same time as the pavilion, and the two were designed together: the water is the mirror in which the building was always meant to be seen. Stand at the bottom of the steps and look back to see the dome doubled in the surface. The stairway, with its balustrade and grotto beneath, gave the tropical plants of 1887 a place to be shown outdoors, and a small artificial cave under the steps still drips in summer. The best light is in the afternoon, when the sun comes through the trees from the west and the glass turns gold.
The cypresses have grown for well over a century and are now among the notable trees of the park, listed in the city's inventory of singular trees. They survive because their roots are adapted to standing water, which would kill most other species, so what looks like a whim of the gardener is really good botany. A memorable detail is the way the trees change the mood of the whole scene through the year: bright green in spring, deep and shady in summer, copper in November and bare silhouettes in winter, each season a different frame for the same building.
Did You Know? Bald cypresses are native to the swamps of Louisiana and Florida, and the ones in the lake are among the oldest of the species in Madrid.
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