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| ## bald cypress {#bald-cypress .Title-Header}                         |
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| *Taxodium distichum* (L.) L.C. Rich.                                  |
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| Plant Symbol = TADI2                                                  |
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Contributed by: USDA NRCS National Plant Data Center

### ![](media/image2.jpeg){width="2.5854166666666667in" height="1.7201388888888889in"}

# Alternative Names

Southern-cypress, swamp-cypress, red-cypress, yellow-cypress,
white-cypress, tidewater red-cypress, gulf-cypress

# Uses

*Erosion Control*: Riverine swamps of bald cypress reduce damage from
floods and act as sediment and pollutant traps as they cause floodwaters
to spread out, slow down, and infiltrate the soil.

*Timber*: Bald cypress wood is valuable for building construction, fence
posts, planking in boats, river pilings, doors, blinds, flooring,
shingles, garden boxes, caskets, interior trim and cabinetry.

*Wildlife*: Wild turkey, wood ducks, evening grosbeak, squirrels,
waterfowl and wading birds eat Bald cypress seeds. Cypress domes provide
unique watering places for a variety of birds and mammals and breeding
sites for frogs, toads, salamanders and other reptiles. Yellow-throated
warblers forage in the Spanish moss often found hanging on the branches.
Its tops provide nesting sites for bald eagles, ospreys, herons and
egrets.

*Site Rehabilitation*: It has potential for rehabilitating margins of
surface-mined lakes. Cypress domes can serve as tertiary sewage
treatment facilities for improving water quality and recharging
groundwater.

*Beautification*: This species has been planted as a water tolerant tree
species used for shading and canopy closure in mosquito control
programs. It has been successfully planted throughout its range as an
ornamental and along roadsides.

# Status

# Please consult the PLANTS Web site and your State Department of Natural Resources for this plant's current status, such as, state noxious status, and wetland indicator values.

# Description

Cypress Family (Cupressaceae). Bald cypress is a large, slow-growing but
long-lived, deciduous conifer, which frequently reaches 100 to 120 feet
in height and 3 to 6 feet in diameter. Its trunk is massive, tapered,
and buttressed. The leaves are alternate, linear, and flat with blades
generally spreading around the twig. The bark is thin and fibrous with
an interwoven pattern of narrow flat ridges and narrow furrows. It is
monoecious with its male and female flowers forming slender tassle-like
structures near the edge of the branchlets. It develops a taproot as
well as horizontal roots that lie just below the surface and extend 20
to 50 feet before bending down. It develops knees that grow above water
providing additional support.

# Distribution

Bald cypress is widely distributed along the Atlantic Coastal Plain from
southern Delaware to southern Florida, westward along the lower Gulf
Coast Plain to southeastern Texas. Inland, it grows along streams of the
southeastern states and north in the Mississippi valley to southeastern
Oklahoma, southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southwestern
Indiana.

## 

# Adaptation

Bald cypress is generally restricted to very wet soils consisting of
muck, clay, or fine sand where moisture is abundant and fairly
permanent. It is usually found on flat or nearly flat topography at
elevations less than 100 feet above sea level. Its thin bark offers
little protection against fire and during years of drought when swamps
are dry, fire kills great numbers of cypress.

## 

# Establishment

Either seeds or sprouts can accomplish bald cypress stands. Seeds are
produced annually and good seed production occurs about every three
years. Seeds are dispersed more frequently by floodwaters. Under swamp
conditions, the best seed germination generally takes place on a
sphagnum moss or a wet-muck seedbed. On better-drained soils, seed
usually fails to germinate due to lack of surface water. Soil saturated
for 1 to 3 months after seedfall is required for germination. Seedlings
require light for good growth, thus control of competing vegetation is
necessary.

Bald cypress will produce vigorous sprouts from the stumps of both young
and old trees, following disturbance.

# Management

The best management practice for regenerating this species is canopy
thinning. Through thinning, competition is controlled and overhead light
is provided for newly germinated seedlings. Nutria, a swamp rodent,
often clips or uproots newly planted seedlings before the root systems
are fully established, thus killing them. Control of nutria population
is necessary. Severe fire after logging or drainage destroys seeds and
roots in the soil, favoring willows and hardwoods to take over.

# Pests

Brown pocket rot known as "pecky cypress" which is caused by the *fungus
Stereum taxodi* attacks the heartwood. The forest tent caterpillar
(*Malacosma disstria*) and fruit-tree leafroller (*Archips argyrospila*)
larvae web and feed on needles causing dieback and eventually death.

# Cultivars, Improved and Selected Materials (and area of origin)

Readily available from nurseries within its range. Contact your local
Natural Resources Conservation Service (formerly Soil Conservation
Service) office for more information. Look in the phone book under
"United States Government." The Natural Resources Conservation Service
will be listed under the subheading "Department of Agriculture."

# Prepared By

#### *Lincoln M. Moore*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

# 

# Species Coordinator

*Lincoln M. Moore*

USDA, NRCS, National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Edited: 10jan02 jsp; 060818 jsp

For more information about this and other plants, please contact your
local NRCS field office or Conservation District, and visit the PLANTS
Web site\<[http://plants.usda.gov](http://plants.usda.gov/)\> or the
Plant Materials Program Web site
\<[http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov](http://Plant-Materials.nrcs.usda.gov/)\>

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*To file a complaint of discrimination write USDA, Director, Office of
Civil Rights, Room 326-W, Whitten Building, 14th and Independence
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