| Measuring "The Senator"
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| Florida Champion
Baldcypress Taxodium distichium |
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Identification
Size:
Range: The Baldcypress is a low-elevation tree that prefers swampy, water-logged lands. It grows wild in the Atlantic coastal plain and broad, flatr valleys of the Lower Mississippi River, and its tributaries and bayous. It's northern range is from southern Illinois and Indian east to Delaware Bay on the Atlantic Coast. However, a New York Champion Baldcypress growing by Bleeker Stadium in Albany stands 76 feet tall, with 176 inch (13.5 feet) girth.
Leaves are uniquely feathery, with small individual leaves arranged alternately in tight, flat sprays along twiglets. This is one of the few deciduous conifers. Foliage is shed every fall after turning copper bronze. The tiny leaves do not cause much litter, and the airy, light canopy allows other plants to grow below.
Flowers expand in late winter when the swamp is otherwise bare of foliage. Conspicuous catkins of pollen-bering flowers are among the first life signs of the new year. Seed-forming flowers are round brown cones the size of golf balls.
Fruit is
Bark
Twigs are
Buds are
Wood is
Culture
Soils: Baldcypress prefers heavy soil, or rich in organic matter.
Seedlings: Seeds need constant moisture to germinate. Seed germinates best in spring after winter stratification and sown on moist sphagnum moss. In swamps, trees are shallow-rooted. Small trees can be transplanted, but become deep-rooted on upland sites.
Saplings: New trees must be watered regularly until roots reach water in lower soil depths. Once well established, trees tolerate any amount of watrer, and grow quickly in cultivation.
Knees: If planted in well-drained sites, Baldcypress will not develop "knees"—porous root growths that look like stalagmites. Knees may be pruned off at ground level, but in mulched beds, they become living sculptures.
Problems: Once established, the Baldcypress is a carefree species. A deciduous conifer that resists wind and ice damage. Strong wood is not vulnerable to insects, canker or wind, and is even more resistant to decay after aging over a century. Alkaline soil can cause chlorosis. Some trees are susceptible to gall-forming mites and midges.
Cultivars:
Related Species: Other than the BaldcypressPond Cypress complex, one other Taxodium species can be found: Montezuma Cypress (Taxodium mucronatum), which grows along rivers in south Texas, Mexico and Guatemala. The Giant Tule Cypress in Santa Maria de Tule village south of Mexico City has the largest diameter trunk of any tree on Earth.
The closest living relative and mimic of the Baldcypress is Dawn Redwood (Metasequois glyptostroboides), the "fossil tree" thought extinct until discovered alive in China in 1945. Oldest specimens in America, including a beautiful grove at Missouti Botanic Gardens in St. Louis, date back only to 1947. Many members of this family only exist as fossils.