Bald Cypress

Taxodium distichum

The Bald Cypress is found in deep swamps which are usually flooded for long periods at a time and on wet stream banks, bottomlands and other moist places in the lower Atlantic Coastal Plain and westward into the Mississippi Valley. This beautiful tree with a straight trunk and conical outline is found virtually throughout Florida. In old age, the tree generally develops a broad fluted or buttressed base, a smooth slowly tapering trunk and a broad, open, flat crown.

Bark of Bald Cypress is silvery to cinnamon-red and finely divided by numerous longitudinal fissures.

Leaves are about one-third to three-fourths of an inch in length, arranged in feather-like fashion along two sides of small branchlets, which fall in the autumn with the leaves still attached. The round, ball-like cone is about an inch in diameter, and is made up of thick, irregular scales.

The wood is light, soft, easily worked, and varies in color from the pale sapwood to the dark-brown heartwood. The heartwood is particularly durable in contact with the soil. It is suitable for exterior trim of buildings, shingles, posts, and crossties.

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Tree information provided with permission of the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services for more information visit https://www.fdacs.gov/.