Bald Cypress Knees

Description:

(Bald-cypress, Baldcypress, Bald Cypress, Cypress, Southern-cypress,White-cypress, Tidewater Red-Cypress, Gulf-Cypress, Red-Cypress, or Swamp Cypress) is a deciduous conifer that grows on saturated and seasonally inundated soils of the Southeastern and Gulf Coastal Plains of the United states

Habitat:

The native range extends from Delaware Bay south to Florida and west to Texas and southeastern Oklahoma-(Little Dixie region, Oklahoma), and also inland up the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers north to southern Illinois and Indiana. Large planted specimens are seen as far north as Pittsburgh[9]. Ancient Bald-cypress forests, with some trees more than 1,700 years old, once dominated swamps in the southeast US. The largest remaining old-growth stands of Bald-cypress are at Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, near Naples, Florida.[citation needed] and in the Three Sisters tract along eastern North Carolina's Black River. The Corkscrew trees are around 500 years of age and some exceed 40 m in height. The Black River trees were cored in 1986 by University of Arkansas dendrologists with dates ranging back to 364 AD.[10]In the northern and more inland part of its range from Delaware and Maryland to Williamsburg, Virginia, it is found in groups growing in swamps and is accompanied by other hardwoods. In the southern parts of its range from extreme southeastern Virginia, Virginia Beach south to Florida and west to Texas, bald cypress can be found growing with loblolly pine, live oak and it may be heavily covered in spanish moss. A place to observe this in the far northern part of its range is at First Landing State Park, Virginia Beach, Virginia where you will see bald cypress growing with live oak, loblolly pine, spanish moss and other trees at their farthest north and farthest south ranges. From eastern North Carolina down throughout Florida, bald cypress may be accompanied in forests by sabal minor (dwarf palmetto). It is native to humid climates where annual precipitation ranges from about 760 mm (in Texas) to 1630 mm (along the Gulf Coast). Although it grows best in warm climates, the natural northern limit of the species is not due to a lack of cold tolerance, but to specific reproductive requirements; further north, regeneration is prevented by ice damage to seedlings. Larger trees are able to tolerate much lower temperatures and lower humidities.

Notes:

Growing knees of a live tree.