bald cypress

a tree, Taxodium distichum, of swampy areas of the southern U.S., having featherlike needles and cone-shaped projections growing up from the roots, yielding a hardwood used in construction, shipbuilding, etc. Also called southern cypress.

[1700-10, Amer.]

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Either of two large swamp trees (Taxodium distichum and T. ascendens; family Taxodiaceae) of the southern U.S. that are related to the sequoias.

The hard red wood of cypress is often used for roofing shingles. The so-called deciduous cypress family (see deciduous tree) comprises 10 genera with 15 species of ornamental and timber evergreen trees, native to eastern Asia, Tasmania, and North America. The leaves on a single tree may be scalelike, needlelike, or a mixture of both. Both male and female cones are borne on the same tree. The Tasmanian cedar (Athrotaxis), Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica), China fir (Cunninghamia lanceolata), umbrella pine (Sciadopitys verticillata), big tree, redwood, dawn redwood, and bald cypress are economically important timber trees in this family.

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▪ species

 either of two species of ornamental and timber conifers constituting the genus Taxodium (family Cupressaceae), native to swampy areas of southern North America. The name bald cypress, or swamp cypress, is used most frequently as the common name for T. distichum, economically the most important species.

      A young bald cypress is symmetrical and pyramidal; as it matures, it develops a coarse, wide-spreading head. Its tapering trunk is usually 30 metres (about 100 feet) tall and one metre in diameter. The reddish-brown bark weathers to an ashy gray. An old tree is usually hollow and is known as pecky, or peggy, cypress in the lumber trade, because of small holes in the wood caused by a fungus. A tree growing in wet soil is strongly buttressed about the base, and its horizontal roots often send conical, woody projections called “knees” above the waterline. The knees, whose presumed function is still poorly understood, are popular household ornaments.

      The smaller pond, or upland, cypress of the southeastern U.S., a variety (T. distichum, variety imbricatum) of the bald cypress, sometimes is considered to be a separate species (T. ascendens). It has erect branches and shorter, more scalelike leaves.

      The closely related Montezuma or Mexican cypress (T. mucronatum) is native to the southwestern U.S., Mexico, and Guatemala. It is distinguished from the bald cypress by its shorter, persistent leaves and larger cones. It rarely produces knees.

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