BALD CYPRESS : Taxodium distichum 



WHY names widely different in meaning should be used 

 to designate what may be fancied as particular character- 

 istics of a tree, such as black, white, and red, as is the case 

 with the Bald Cypress, is certainly very strange ; but it 

 emphasizes the difficulty of indicating what tree is meant 

 when only the local common name is given. None of the 

 conflicting terms named in this case, however, are used to 

 any great extent, and Bald Cypress probably because of 

 its deciduous habit, becoming " bald " in winter may be 

 considered as the accepted name. Lumber cut from the 

 tree is known as " cypress " in the trade. While there are 

 two species of Cypress on this continent, and several varie- 

 ties of one of them, only the one under consideration has 

 any commercial value. 



The tree is strictly a conifer, but not an evergreen, for 

 it sheds all of its leaves and some of its smallest twigs each 

 year. It matures its fruit in one year, but its flower buds 

 are formed the year previous. It is mainly confined to the 

 South Atlantic and Gulf regions, where it was once found 

 abundantly in swamps and along low banks of streams 

 which are usually submerged for months at a time, and in 

 the case of some swamps continually so. Large areas, de- 

 nominated "cypress swamps," are still to be seen, where 

 lumbering operations are difficult and expensive. It is also 

 found growing in wet depressions and occasionally on dry 

 ground, in Louisiana, Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Ken- 

 tucky, southern Illinois, and southern Indiana. It is one 

 of the very few species of trees that will accommodate 

 itself to extremes of moisture in the soil. Its preferred 

 habitat is evidently in swamps where its roots are kept wet 

 or continually submerged ; yet when located on dry ground 

 it grows nearly if not quite as well as when in a swamp 



