Taxodium distichum (Baldcypress, Bald Cypress, or Swamp Cypress)

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Taxodium distichum (Baldcypress, Bald Cypress, or Swamp Cypress) is a species of conifer
Pinophyta

The conifers, division Pinophyta, also known as division Coniferae, are one of 13 or 14 division level taxon within the Plant. They are Conifer cone-bearing seed plants with Vascular plant tissue; all extant conifers are woody plants, the great majority being trees with just a few being shrubs....
native to the southeastern United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
.

Characteristics
It is a large tree
TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
, reaching 25–40 m (rarely to 44 m) tall and a trunk diameter of 2–3 m, rarely to 5 m. The bark
BARK

BARK was an early Electromechanics. BARK was built using standard phone relays, implementing a 32-bit binary machine and could perform addition in 150 ms and multiplication in 250 ms....
is gray-brown to red-brown, shallowly vertically fissured, with a stringy texture. The leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
are borne on deciduous
Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
branchlets that are spirally arranged on the stem but twisted at the base to lie in two horizontal ranks, 1-2 cm long and 1-2 mm broad; unlike most other species in the family Cupressaceae, it is deciduous, losing the leaves in the winter months, hence the name 'bald'. It is monoecious
Plant sexuality

Plant sexuality covers the wide variety of sexual reproduction systems found across the plant kingdom. This article describes Morphology aspects of sexual reproduction of plants....
. Male and female strobili mature in about 12 months; they are produced from buds formed in the late fall, with pollination in early winter. The seed cones
Conifer cone

A cone is an organ on plants in the division Pinophyta that contains the plant sexuality structures. The familiar woody cone is the female cone, which produces seeds....
are green maturing gray-brown, globular, 2-3.5 cm in diameter. They have from 20–30 spirally arranged four-sided scales, each bearing one or two (rarely three) trianglular seed
Seed

A seed is a small Plant embryogenesis plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some Food storage. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant....
s. The number of seeds per cone ranges from 20–40. The cones disintegrate when mature to release the large seeds. The seeds are 5-10 mm long, the largest of any species in the cypress family, and are produced every year but with heavy crops every three to five years. The seedlings have 3–9 (most often 6) cotyledon
Cotyledon

A cotyledon is a significant part of the embryo within the seed of a plant. Upon germination, the cotyledon may become the embryonic first leaf of a seedling....
s.

The largest known individual specimen is "The Senator
Senator (tree)

The Senator is the largest Taxodium distichum tree in the United States. It is 115 ft tall, with a trunk diameter of 11.3 feet , and an estimated stem volume of 4,216 cubic feet ....
", near Longwood, Florida
Longwood, Florida

Longwood is a city in Seminole County, Florida, Florida, United States. The population was 13,745 at the 2000 census. As of 2006, the population recorded by the U.S....
: it is 35 m tall, and with a trunk diameter of 344 cm and an estimated volume of 119.4 m³. The tallest known, near Williamsburg, Virginia
Williamsburg, Virginia

Williamsburg is a city located on the Virginia Peninsula in the Hampton Roads region in southeastern Virginia. As of the United States Census 2000, the city had a total population of 11,998....
, is 44 m tall, and the stoutest known, on Cat Island, Louisiana, has 521 cm diameter
Diameter at breast height

Diameter at breast height, or DBH, is a standard method of expressing the diameter of the trunk of a tree.The trunk is measured at the height of an adult's breast; this is defined differently in different situations, with forestry measuring the diameter at 1.3 meters above ground, while people measuring ornamental plants usually measu...
.

Taxonomy
The closely related Taxodium ascendens
Taxodium ascendens

Taxodium ascendens, also known as Pond Cypress, is a species of Taxodium native to the Southeastern United States United States, from coastal North Carolina to southeastern Louisiana....
(Pondcypress) is treated by some botanists as a distinct species, while others classify it as merely a variety of Baldcypress, as Taxodium distichum var. imbricatum (Nutt.) Croom. It differs in shorter leaves borne on erect shoots, and in ecology, being largely confined to low nutrient blackwater
Blackwater River

Blackwater River may refer to:*West Road River, also known as the Blackwater River, in British Columbia, Canada*Blackwater River in Canada*Blackwater River, New Zealand in the South Island of New Zealand...
habitats. A few authors also treat Taxodium mucronatum
Taxodium mucronatum

Taxodium mucronatum, also known as Montezuma Cypress, Sabino, Ahuehuete , is a species of Taxodium native to much of Mexico , and also southernmost Texas, USA ....
as a variety of Baldcypress, as T. distichum var. mexicanum Gordon, thereby considering the genus as comprising only one species.

Habitat

Range
Caddo Lake Cypress
The native range extends from Delaware Bay
Delaware Bay

Delaware Bay is a large estuary outlet of the Delaware River on the Northeast seaboard of the United States whose fresh water mixes for many miles with the waters of the Atlantic Ocean....
south to Florida
Florida

Florida is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the northeast....
and west to Texas
East Texas

East Texas is a distinct geographic and ecological area in the United States state of Texas.According to the Handbook of Texas, the East Texas area "may be separated from the rest of Texas roughly by a line extending from the Red River in north central Lamar County, TX southwestward to east central Limestone County, TX and then south...
and southeastern Oklahoma
Oklahoma

Oklahoma is a U.S. state and a sovereignty located in the South Central United States and Southern United States of the United States of America ....
-(Little Dixie
Little Dixie (Oklahoma)

Little Dixie is the name given to the southeast region of Oklahoma, which is heavily influenced by southern Dixie culture, as it was settled chiefly by Southerners seeking a start in new lands following the American Civil War....
region, Oklahoma), and also inland up the Mississippi
Mississippi River

The Mississippi River is the longest river in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to its mouth in the Gulf of Mexico....
and Ohio River
Ohio River

The Ohio River is the largest tributary, by volume, of the Mississippi River. It is approximately 981 miles long and is located in the eastern United States....
s north to southern Illinois
Illinois

The State of Illinois is a U.S. state of the United States, the 21st to be admitted to the United States. Illinois is the most populous and demographically diverse Midwestern United States state and the fifth most populous state in the nation....
and Indiana
Indiana

The State of Indiana was the 19th U.S. state admitted into the union. It is located in the Midwestern United States of the United States of America....
. Ancient Baldcypress forest
Forest

File:Stara planina suma.jpgA forest is an area with a high density of trees. There are many definitions of a forest, based on various criteria....
s, with some trees more than 1,200 years old, once dominated swamp
Swamp

A swamp is a wetland featuring temporary or permanent inundation of large areas of land, by shallow bodies of water. A swamp generally has a substantial number of hammock , or dry-land protrusions, covered by aquatic vegetation, or vegetation that tolerates periodical inundation....
s in the southeast US. The largest remaining old-growth stand of Baldcypress is at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary
Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary is a National Audubon Society sanctuary located in southwest Florida, north of Naples, Florida and east of Bonita Springs, Florida, in the United States....
, near Naples
Naples, Florida

File:Sugden Community Theatre.jpgFile:Naples City Dock1.jpgFile:Naples Pier2.jpgFile:Naples Pier3.jpgNaples is a city in Collier County, Florida, Florida, United States....
, Florida
Florida

Florida is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States of the United States, bordering Alabama to the northwest and Georgia to the northeast....
. These trees are around 500 years of age and some exceed 40 m in height.

It is native to humid climates where precipitation ranges from about 760 mm (in Texas) to 1630 mm (along the Gulf Coast).

Although it grows best in warm climates, the natural northern limit of the species is not due to a lack of cold tolerance, but to specific reproductive requirements; further north, regeneration is prevented by ice
Ice

Ice is a solid phases of matter, usually crystalline solid, of a non-metallic substance that is liquid or gas at room temperature, such as ammonia ice or methane ice....
damage to seedlings. Larger trees are able to tolerate much lower temperatures and lower humidities.

Soils and Topography
Most Baldcypress grow on flat ground on alluvial
Alluvium

Alluvium is soil or sediments deposited by a river or other running water. Alluvium is typically made up of a variety of materials, including fine particles of silt and clay and larger particles of sand and gravel....
soils, usually at elevations of less than 50 m above sea level, although some stands may occur at elevations of 500 m in Texas.

Baldcypress occurs mainly along riparian (riverside) wetlands normally subject to periodic flooding by silt-rich 'brownwater' rivers, unlike the related Taxodium ascendens
Taxodium ascendens

Taxodium ascendens, also known as Pond Cypress, is a species of Taxodium native to the Southeastern United States United States, from coastal North Carolina to southeastern Louisiana....
, which occurs in silt-poor blackwater river
Blackwater River

Blackwater River may refer to:*West Road River, also known as the Blackwater River, in British Columbia, Canada*Blackwater River in Canada*Blackwater River, New Zealand in the South Island of New Zealand...
s and pond
Pond

A pond is a body of water smaller than a lake, both being examples of terrain feature. Although the term pond is universally used to describe waterbodies that are smaller than lakes, an internationally recognised size cutoff has not yet been agreed, with values ranging from 2 hectares to 8 hectares used to distinguish the smaller from...
s. Baldcypress tolerates minor salinity, but does not grow in brackish or saline coastal waters.

Ecology
The seeds remain viable for less than one year, and are dispersed in two ways. One is by water; the seeds float and move on water until flooding recedes or the cone is deposited on shore. The second is by wildlife; squirrel
Squirrel

File:Eichh?rnchen D?sseldorf Hofgarten edit.jpgA squirrel is one of many small or medium-sized rodents in the family Sciuridae. In the English language-speaking world, squirrel commonly refers to members of this family's genus Sciurus and Tamiasciurus, which are tree squirrels with large bushy tails, indigenous to Asia, the America...
s eat seeds but often drop some scales from the cones they harvest. Seeds do not germinate under water and rarely germinate on well drained soils; seedlings normally become established on soil that is continuously saturated, but not flooded, for one to three months. After germination, seedlings must grow quickly to escape floodwaters; they often reach a height of 20–75 cm (up to 100 cm in fertilized nursery
Nursery (horticulture)

A nursery is a place where plants are plant propagation and grown to usable size. There are retail nurseries which sell to the general public, wholesale nurseries which sell only to...
conditions) in their first year. Seedlings die if inundated for more than about two to four weeks. Natural regeneration is therefore prevented on sites that are always flooded during the growing season. Although vigorous saplings and stump sprouts can produce viable seed, most specimens do not produce seed until they are about 30 years old. In good conditions, Baldcypress grows fairly fast when young, then more slowly with age. Trees have been measured to reach 3 m in five years, 21 m tall in 41 years, and 36 m in 96 years; height growth has largely ceased by the time the trees are 200 years old. Some individuals can live over 1,000 years. It may be difficult to determine the age of an old tree because of frequent missing or false rings of stemwood caused by variable and stressful growing environments. Another interesting fact is that this is one of the few trees that harbor Spanish moss
Spanish Moss

Spanish moss closely resembles its namesake . However, Spanish moss is not biologically related to either mosses or lichens. Instead, it is a flowering plant in the family Bromeliaceae that grows hanging from tree branches in full sun or partial shade....
, a gray twisted air plant that lives in the southern United States.

Cypress 8001
Baldcypress growing in swamps have a peculiarity of growth called cypress knee
Cypress knee

In the biology of trees, a cypress knee is a distinctive structure in a root of a Cupressaceae tree of any of various species of the subfamily Cupressaceae#Classification....
s. These are woody projections sent above the ground or water that are part of the root
Root

In vascular plants, the root is the organ of a plant body that typically lies below the surface of the soil. This is not always the case, however, since a root can also be aerial root or aerating ....
system. Their function was once thought to be to provide oxygen
Oxygen

Oxygen no O2 produced; 2) O2 produced, but absorbed in oceans & seabed rock; 3) O2 starts to gas out of the oceans, but is absorbed by land surfaces and formation of ozone layer; 4-5) O2 sinks filled and the gas accumulates]]...
to the roots, which grow in the low dissolved oxygen (DO) waters typical of a swamp (as in mangrove
Mangrove

Mangroves are trees and shrubs that grow in saline water coastal habitats in the tropics and subtropics. The word is used in at least three senses: most broadly to refer to the habitat and entire plant assemblage or mangal, for which the terms mangrove swamp and mangrove forest are also used, to refer to all trees and...
s). However, there is little evidence for this; in fact, roots of swamp-dwelling specimens whose knees are removed do not decrease in oxygen content and the trees continue to thrive. Another more likely function is that of structural support and stabilization. Baldcypress growing on flood-prone sites tend to form buttressed bases, but trees grown on drier sites may lack this feature. Buttressed bases and a strong, intertwined root system allows them to resist very strong winds; even hurricanes rarely overturn them.

Many agents damage Baldcypress trees. The main lethal damaging agent is the fungus
Fungus

A fungus is a Eukaryote organism that is a member of the Kingdom Fungi . The fungi are a monophyletic group, also called the Eumycota , that is phylogeny distinct from the morphologically similar slime molds and water molds ....
Stereum taxodi, which causes a brown pocket rot known as "pecky cypress". It attacks the heartwood of living trees, usually from the crown down to the roots. A few other fungi attack the sapwood and the heartwood of the tree, but they do not usually cause serious damage. Insect
Insect

Insects are the biggest class of arthropods and the only ones with wings. They are the most diverse group of animals on the planet. They are most diverse at the equator and their diversity declines toward the poles....
s like the cypress flea beetle and the baldcypress leafroller (Archips goyerana) (closely related to the fruit tree leafroller) can seriously damage Baldcypress trees by destroying leaves, cones or the bark of tree. Coypu
Coypu

The coypu, or nutria is a large, herbivore, semiaquatic rodent and the only member of the family Myocastoridae. Originally native to temperate South America, it has since been introduced to North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, primarily by fur ranchers....
also clip and unroot young Baldcypress seedlings, sometimes killing a whole plantation in a short amount of time.

Cultivation and uses
It is a very popular ornamental tree, grown for its light, feathery foliage and orange-brown fall color. In cultivation it thrives on a wide range of soils including well-drained sites where it would not grow naturally due to the inability of the young seedlings to compete with other vegetation. Cultivation is successful far to the north of its native range, north to southern Canada
Canada

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean....
. It is also commonly planted in Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
, Asia
Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
and elsewhere with temperate to subtropical climates. It does however require continental climate
Continental climate

Continental climate is a climate that is characterized by winter temperatures cold enough to support a fixed period of snow cover each year, and relatively moderate precipitation occurring mostly in summer, although east coast areas may show an even distribution of precipitation....
s with hot summers for good growth; when planted in areas with cool summer oceanic climate
Oceanic climate

An oceanic climate is the climate typically found along the west coasts at the middle latitudes of all the world's continents, and in southeastern Australia....
s, growth is healthy but very slow (some in northeastern England have only reached 4–5 m tall in about 50 years), and cones are not produced.

Baldcypress has been noted for its high merchantable yields. In virgin stands, yields from 112 to 196 m³/ha were common, and some stands might have exceeded 1000 m³/ha. Baldcypress swamps are some of the world's most productive ecosystems.

Baldcypress wood has long been valued for its water resistance thus called 'wood eternal'. Still-usable prehistoric wood is often found in swamps in New Jersey and occasionally as far north as New England although it is more common in the southeast. The somewhat-mineralized wood is mined from some swamps in the southeast, and is highly prized for specialty uses such as wood carvings. Pecky cypress, caused by the fungus Stereum taxodii is used for decorative wall paneling.

The Baldcypress was designated the official state tree
List of U.S. state trees

This List of U.S. state trees includes official trees of the following U.S. state and U.S. possessions:...
of Louisiana
Louisiana

The State of Louisiana is a U.S. state located in the U.S. Southern States of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans....
in 1963, and is considered by some to be a symbol of the southern swamps.

See also

* Battle Creek Cypress Swamp
Battle Creek Cypress Swamp

Battle Creek Cypress Swamp is a forested wetland near Prince Frederick in Calvert County, Maryland, USA. It is one of the northernmost sites of naturally occurring bald cypress trees in North America, and the only large stand of the trees on the western shore of Maryland....
, Maryland





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