Facts on Bald Cyprus Trees

Baldcypress trees feature foliage that comes off in fall.

The bald cyprus, or cypress, tree is a conifer, but one that sheds its foliage every year rather than remaining as an evergreen specimen. The bald cypress shows an ability to thrive in wet ground, often growing in water, although this is not a prerequisite for this species to live. The bald cypress can handle drier ground as well, making it useful, along with its various hybrids, as an ornamental species in locations other than the borders of swamps and ponds.

Identification

One of the features of many bald cypress trees is a basal area that is wider than the rest of the trunk. Trees growing in the water will look as if they actually own knees sticking up out of the aquatic environment--these are woody extensions of the root system. The bald cypress can grow to great heights, but the tree averages from 100 to 130 feet tall, with a trunk as wide as 3 to 4 feet. The mature bald cypress may have an odd, flat-topped appearance.

Geography

The bald cypress grows from the southern sections of Delaware southward on the coastal plain of the Atlantic Ocean into Florida, growing over much of that state. The tree grows in southern Alabama, almost all of the state of Mississippi, parts of western Tennessee and Kentucky northward to southwestern Indiana, southern Illinois and southeast Missouri. Louisiana, most of Arkansas and extreme eastern Texas is home to bald cypress.

Considerations

The greenish-yellow needles change to red-brown in fall before coming off a bald cypress, a feature that makes the tree attractive at that time of the year. The bald cypress has bark that contains fissures, has a fibrous nature and is red-brown. Bald cypress trees need full sun, but you do not have to plant it close to water, as long as the site you select for it is not overly arid. The bald cypress does best in a slightly acidic soil and the tree needs little maintenance once it takes hold.

Pests

One of the biggest problems the young bald cypress tree seedling faces in southern states comes from a mammal called the nutria. This relative to the beaver and muskrat is a non-native aquatic creature that will knock over a bald cypress before the tree gets the chance to establish itself, eating the roots and killing the tree. The National Forest Service website recommends that placing chicken wire securely around a bald cypress seedling can give it some protection in places with large populations of nutrias.

Types

Some of bald cypress's cultivars have features that the typical specimen does not, such as the column-like shape of one known as Fastigiata. The opposite is true of the Monarch of Illinois type, as its branches may spread as wide as 70 feet. The Shawnee Brave hybrid resists the effects of mites, a problem with some kinds of this tree and this type of bald cypress may grow 80 feet tall. The Pendens has branches that droop at the tips.

References

• National Forest Service: Baldcypress
• University of Connecticut Plant Database: Common Baldcypress
• Nearctica: Bald Cypress
• "National Audubon Society Field Guide to Trees"; Elbert L. Little; 2008
• "Trees of North America"; C. Frank Brockman; 1996