Bald Cypress.
Taxodium distichum.
It's one of my favorite native trees.
It's native range is from the middle of Delaware, southern Delaware, South through the Southeastern
United States over to Louisiana and into East Texas.
It's a very fast growing tree, but interestingly enough, it's a very hard wood.
Usually you don't associate those two traits.
It's also a very rot resistant wood.
Cypress was used as underpinnings for foundations and for greenhouse carpentry because it resists
the onslaughts of water.
It can reach well over 100 feet in the wild.
Under cultivation you might get 60 to 70 feet, easily.
This tree that I am standing next to was planted six years ago as a foot and a half seedling.
This is very typical of it's growth.
It will grow at least two feet a year, if it is happy.
It prefers plenty of moisture at it's feet.
If you think of the swamps of Northern Florida and Georgia and Louisiana, that is where these
trees really excel at their best growth.
Plenty of water, full sun is also important.
Although of course, in the woods, in the native stands, the young trees will shoot up in kind
of light shade.
This tree, along with a select number of species, is what we call a deciduous conifer.
It is a conifer like a pine tree, but it drops it's needles in the Fall.
The fall color is kind of interesting, it's a wonderful Bronze and stays on the plant
for a couple of weeks in late October or early November here in New Haven.
In the early Spring the light green growth begins to come out, to emerge.
This is a wonderful, wonderful color of green in the landscape this time of year.
When you are thinking about planting a Bald Cypress, first of all you want enough room
in your yard for the thing to grow, the top.
But you also have to consider such issues as; if you have a drain field for your septic
system, you will not want to plant this plant close to that, because it's roots will infiltrate
and maybe cause problems for that down the road.
So separate them as far as you can.
Now, where Bald Cypress are really happy is in, like I say, the swamp-like conditions
and in those conditions they begin to grow what is called knees.
These structures that come out of the ground off of the root system and they can actually
rise to a foot and a half to two foot or even more.
They are not really sure exactly why these knees form, under those conditions.
It's been posited that it could be for structural support.
It could have something to do with exchange of air and gases.
No one has come up with the definitive answer to that as far as I know.
It is a large growing, a fast growing tree and it's deciduous, so it may come in handy
if you want shade and to block a view during the Summertime, but in the Wintertime you
want the sunlight to penetrate to your yard, it would be a great tree for that.
Bald Cypress.
Taxodium distichum.