AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Vol. XXII 



OCTOBER 1916 



No. 274 



The Bald Cypress 



( Tax odium distichum ) 



Identification and Characteristics 



By Samuel B. Detwiler 



THE interesting habits of the bald cypress give it 

 special distinction in the forest community. It is 

 one of the few cone-bearing trees that shed their 



leaves each year, and the 

 branches that bear the leaves 

 also fall with them. It has 

 ability to send up vigorous 

 sprouts from the stumps when 

 the trees are cut, a rare 

 power in conifers. Not only 

 is it exceptionally beautiful 

 in form and foliage, but it is 

 one of our most valuable lum- 

 ber-producing trees, with 

 heartwood so durable that it 

 has the title of "The Wood 

 Eternal." Other trees are 

 adapted for growth in 

 swamps, but they soon die 

 if the soil is continuously 

 flooded. Bald cypress alone 

 can live and thrive with its 

 roots always submerged ; the 

 unique " knees " which en- 

 able this tree to sustain life 

 under such extremely adverse 

 conditions have furnished 

 scientists with a fascinating 

 problem as to how they ac- 

 complish their purpose. 



Bald cypress ( Taxodium 

 distichum) traces its descent 

 from a very ancient family. 

 Prior to the glacial epoch, it 

 grew in the Arctic regions of 

 North America and Europe. 

 Bald cypress should not be 

 confused with the true 

 cypresses, to which the Euro- 

 pean cypress belongs. It has 

 two closely related species, 

 one a shrub native to China, 

 the other a large tree found 

 in Mexico. The Mexican 

 cypress may reach 40 feet in 



THE BALD CYPRESS 



Cypress is a conifer, but not an evergreen tree, and both leaves and 

 branchlets are dropped in the fall. The foliage consists of very small, 

 flat, or needle-shaped leaves, arranged either in two horizontal rows or 

 clinging closely to fragile branchlets. The pollen-bearing flowers appear 

 in the spring in purple drooping clusters borne at the ends of the twigs. 

 Each flower consists of a few small pollen-bearing scales. The globular 

 cones are brown in color and are about the size of a small walnut. They 

 are scattered singly or in pairs near the tips of the branches and ripen 

 their seed in the fall from flowers that appear early in the spring. Bald 

 cypress is interesting, botanically, as one of the few surviving members 

 of a race of trees which was prominent in geologic times. Among its 

 associates were the redwoods of California. Only two other close rela- 

 tives are known, one an evergreen cypress on the tablelands of Mexico 

 and the other a tree occurring in China. 



diameter at the base and lives to a great age. The 

 " Cypress of Montezuma," reverenced by the Indians 

 long before the discovery of America, belongs to the 



Mexican species. The natural 

 growth of bald cypress is 

 found in the wide strip of 

 low, sandy land bordering the 

 Atlantic and Gulf coasts, from 

 southern Delaware (and the 

 extreme southern portion of 

 New Jersey) to southern 

 Texas. It grows in all sec- 

 tions of Florida, Louisiana 

 and Mississippi and extends 

 northward through the 

 Mississippi Valley to south- 

 ern Indiana and western 

 Kentucky. 



In very wet places the foot 

 of the trunk flares into a 

 fluted, heavily ridged cone, 

 which may be so broad at the 

 base that the tree appears as 

 though it had built a platform 

 on which to erect its trunk. 

 The enlargement of the base, 

 combined with the peculiari- 

 ties of its root system, gives 

 the tree great stability in the 

 ooze of the sloughs and 

 swamps. Windstorms that 

 uproot the oaks do not harm 

 the cypress. Above the 

 swollen base the trunk tapers 

 evenly and is usually straight. 

 When young, the trees have 

 rather erect branches, forming 

 a handsome and symmetrical 

 pyramid, but later the 

 branches droop slightly. Old 

 trees lose their lower branches 

 and the tops become rounded 

 in the open or broad and flat- 

 tened in the forest ; such trees, 

 especially when festooned 

 577 



