Lessons learned: Bald cypress is a tree to know

Don’t you wish you knew then what you know now? Speaking from experience, when I first began studying plants, people would ask me lots of gardening or landscaping questions. Did I as a first-year student know the answer? No. Did I pretend to? Yes. It must be human nature as a young adult.

As a fresh-faced SIUC horticulture student, I was asked at a Christmas party by a family friend if I could pick out some plants for screening between two homes. I said yes, thinking surely, they wouldn’t call me up in the spring. They did. Have you ever worked on a project where everything went wrong? This was one, except one thing went right. And that was planting a bald cypress (Taxodium distichum).

As I fumbled around at the garden center trying to select plants that might work, I came upon a tree that I had heard about in a botany lecture. A needled conifer that wasn’t an evergreen, it was deciduous. I was struck by the fine textured, soft foliage. Even as a young sapling the woven stringy bark was an admirable feature. We needed something to anchor the end of this landscape screening bed near a pond. The label noted its tolerance to wet conditions. With more confidence than the other plants, I placed the bald cypress on the cart and headed to the site.

I didn’t know how to plant a tree. The ground was like rock and I had a tiny garden shovel that bent with every pull of soil. Lifting the rootball out of the pot I squeezed it into the tiny planting hole. Shaving off roots to make it fit. We put grass right up to the base of the trunk and walked away. Most trees would have died. This one did not.

It has been almost twenty years since I installed that landscape screen. Rest assured the other plants are long dead. However, the bald cypress struggled to establish at first, but now is a beautiful specimen of a tree.

A remarkable tree

At the base of the trunk, it developed the characteristic buttress as it widens dramatically at the soil line. The canopy has grown tall holding to a pyramidal shape as it lazily casts its lower branches to touch the water’s surface. As the tree matures (over hundreds of years) it will lose its pyramidal shape and the canopy will widen and flatten near the top.

It gets big and lives a long time

Provided this bald cypress can steer clear of hazards (namely humans), it will grow up to 70 feet tall and nearly 50 feet wide. State champion bald cypress have been measured up to 125 feet tall and some are estimated to have celebrated their 1,000th birthday. A typical bald cypress can live 400 to 600 years.

The Illinois State Champion bald cypress is found in the Lower Cache River and measures 73 feet tall, canopy spread of 35 feet, and has a trunk circumference of 34 feet 3 inches. (That is not a typo. Calculates to 11-foot diameter.) The flaring of the base of the trunk is quite a remarkable feature, especially for those trees growing in swampy areas. There is another bald cypress, that measures larger than the state champion, but is not listed because of a technicality. This other tree is considered the oldest (over 1,000 years) bald cypress in Illinois. It is 100 feet tall, canopy spread of 75 feet, and has a trunk circumference of 43 feet. Why is it not the state champion? Because that 43-foot circumference is measured at 2.5 from the ground, whereas all trunk measurements must take place around 4-feet 6-inches (breast height) from the ground. At breast height, this older, larger bald cypress is technically narrower than the listed state champion, thus knocking it out of the running.

Read more about the bald cypress Illinois state champion. Find more Illinois State Champion Trees. 

Where it grows

The native range of bald cypress just kisses the tip of southern Illinois. A great area to view these trees growing naturally is in the Cache River Natural Area near Belknap, Illinois. Yet you can find bald cypress planted for its ornamental appeal throughout Illinois. From wet to dry soils, this tree does surprisingly well in most environments and is hardy to zone 4. The fall color ranges from rust orange to brown and leaf cleanup is a breeze.

Bald cypress will tolerate partial shade, but full sun is needed to attain its full potential. Nearly any soil type will do for this tree. The ideal soil pH will be slightly acidic to acidic (less than 6 on the pH scale).

A valuable tree

Bald cypress contributes in many different ways to wildlife value. Birds will feed on their seed and nest in their branches. Mammals may find hollows in the trunk for shelter. The cypress “knees” create their form of habitat below and above the water surface for fish, reptiles, and amphibians. The trees moderate water levels in the soil and help with water quality.

Bald cypress wood is considered rot-resistant. Old-growth bald cypress is thought to have improved rot resistance compared to younger trees. Many landscape beds are mulched with shredded bald cypress, which is a poor use of such a great tree and wood. Over time shredded cypress mulch will knit together and form a “shell” that impedes water and air movement to the soil.

Native Americans would use the stringy bark of bald cypress to make rope while using the wood for building and making canoes.

Reproduction

Bald cypress is a gymnosperm and produces a round cone up to an inch in diameter. Male flowers open in the spring to release their pollen which is carried by the wind to the female flowers. The cone produced by the female flower starts green in the summer and into fall. As the cone matures late in the season it dries, opens, and shatters spreading the seed. It is not common to find an intact dried bald cypress cone, another cleanup positive.

Bald cypress "knees"

When growing in swampy areas bald cypress sends up pneumatophores or “knees” from the root system. The knees were thought to help the roots breathe and stabilize the tree. Recent studies show neither to be the case. Storage of starch is thought to be the major function of bald cypress knees for future energy use. The knees can develop when the tree is growing outside of a swampy location, though not as dramatic.

I’ve made mistakes when growing plants, but I know one good decision was planting a bald cypress. I think I may plant more, but this time in a properly dug hole.

Here is a line from a letter penned to Garden and Forest by Dr. Robert Lamborn about bald cypress. (Boy they sure could write back in the day!)

“… but the graceful plumed Cypress, the knight-errant of the sylvan host, bearing with him his trusty anchor—the emblem of Hope—goes forth alone and defiant, afar from his fellows, scorning the methods of his vassals, and planting himself boldly amid a waste of waters, where no other tree dare venture, stands, age after age, erect, isolated, but ever ready to do battle with the elements. Twenty centuries of driving ram and snow and fierce hurricane beat upon his towering form, and yet he stands there, the stern, gray and solitary sentinel of the morass, clinging to the quaking earth with the grasp of Hercules, to whom men were building temples when his wardenship began.” – Dr. Robert H. Lamborn [Garden and Forest 3 (1890): 21-22] From Arnold Arboretum website

Good Growing Tip of the Week: Bald cypress bears a striking resemblance to another deciduous conifer, dawn redwood (Metasequoia glyptostroboides). Bald cypress has an alternate leaf arrangement, while dawn redwood has an opposite arrangement. Bald cypress bark is grayish while dawn redwood has a reddish bark. Finally, branches growing off the trunk of dawn redwood have a depression on the underside often called an “armpit”. Bald cypress lacks the depression. (Trees with knees and armpits. Pretty cool!)