Bald Cypress

This lofty, deciduous conifer grows 50-75 ft. or taller. It is slender and conical in youth, becoming flat-topped in very old age. Sage-green, bipinnately compound leaves, which look more like feathers than needles, turn copper before falling. A tapering trunk is slightly buttressed at the swollen base. Knees develop mostly in poorly drained sitations. Exfoliating bark is red-brown to silver. Large, needle-leaf, aquatic, deciduous tree often with cone-shaped knees projecting from submerged roots, with trunks enlarged at base and spreading into ridges or buttresses, and with a crown of widely spreading branches, flattened at top.