FIELD ID CHARACTERISTICS:
Needles short and pressed together. Bark thick, soft, and shredding.
Description: Medium to large deciduous tree with wide-spreading base, especially when growing in water.
Leaves: Needles on grown trees short and pressed together ("appressed") along upward pointing branchlets.
Flowers/Fruit: Female cones ball-shaped with brown-scale like markings at maturity; immature cones are crinkled green balls. Pollen released March/April; fruits in October.
Habit and Range: Pond cypress grows mainly in the Coastal Plain and Sandhills, in still-water areas such as Carolina bays, pocosins and other wet peaty habitats, shores of natural blackwater lakes, and non-riverine swamps.
Taxonomic Note: Many references consider the two cypresses to be varieties of the same species, Taxodium distichum, with visual differences attributed to environmental factors.
COMMON CONFUSIONS:
Taxodium distichum (bald cypress) has flat, feather-like needles, compared to appressed needles in T. ascendens (pond cypress); however, needles on young trees and new shoots of T. ascendens appear more like those of T. distichum (bald cypress). Bark in T. ascendens is soft and shredding, unlike in T. distichum and cones are somewhat smaller.
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