text: 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."
  Description
  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.