Cypress, Bald

The BALD CYPRESS grows in swamps which are flooded for prolonged periods, and on wet stream banks and bottomlands. It occurs in East Texas west to the Nueces River and also along streams and rivers of Central Texas. The straight trunk has numerous ascending branches, and narrow conical outline. In old age the tree generally has a broad fluted or buttressed base with root “knees” protruding randomly from the ground anywhere around the base, a smooth slowly tapering trunk and a broad, open, flat top of a few heavy branches and numerous small branchlets. Virgin-growth timber attains heights up to 130 feet and diameters up to 10 feet.

The light green LEAVES about 1/2 to 3/4 inch long, are arranged in feather-like fashion along two sides of small branchlets which fall in the autumn with the leaves still attached. They turn a brilliant cinnamon red in the fall.

The “FRUIT”, a rounded cone, is about one inch in diameter, with thick irregular scales.

The FRUIT are cones that come either solitary or two together on a female tree. They are ovoid shaped and are generally 3 to 4 inches long. Bluish when young, the cones turn a reddish brown when grown. The cones fall apart scale by scale instead of intact.

The BARK is silvery to cinnamon-red, finely divided by numerous longitudinal fissures.

The WOOD is light, soft, easily worked, with a light sap wood and dark-brown heartwood. It is particularly durable in contact with the soil. Cypress is in demand for exterior trim of buildings, greenhouse planking, boat and ship building, shingles, posts, poles, and crossties.