Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress)

Taxodium distichum (bald cypress, baldcypress, bald-cypress, cypress, southern-cypress, white-cypress, tidewater red-cypress, Gulf-cypress, red-cypress, or swamp cypress) is a deciduous conifer (in genus Taxodium, familia Cupressaceae) that grows on saturated and seasonally inundated soils of the Southeastern and Gulf Coastal Plains of the United States.

It is a large tree, reaching 25–40 m (rarely 44 m) tall and a trunk diameter of 2–3 m, rarely to 5 m. The bark is gray-brown to red-brown, shallowly vertically fissured, with a stringy texture. The leaves are borne on deciduous 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 its leaves in the winter months, hence the name 'bald'.

In good conditions, Bald-cypress grows fairly fast when young, then more slowly with age. Trees have been measured to reach 3 m in five years, 21 m in 41 years, and 36 m in height 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. Determination of the age of an old tree may be difficult because of frequent missing or false rings of stemwood caused by variable and stressful growing environments.
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