Leaves are flat, alternate, linear with the blades generally emerging all around the twigs. The bark is rough and scaly with a reddish brown coloration, often weathered to a light Grey color. The crown is open and pyramid shaped, becoming flat topped in older trees. A deciduous conifer that grows 100 to 150 feet tall with massive buttressed trunks that grow to 6 feet or more in diameter. Bald cypress has a thin fibrous bark that doesn't protect it from fire very well and in times of drought many trees are killed by fire.
Family - Taxodiaceae (Redwood family) Bald cypress occurs along the Atlantic Coastal Plain from southern Delaware to South Florida and westward along the Gulf Coast Plain to South-eastern Texas, northward along the Mississippi valley to southeastern Oklahoma, southeastern Missouri, southern Illinois, and southwestern Indiana, it is widespread throughout Florida growing in low lying wet and flooded areas with fine sandy, muck or clay soils where moisture is available for most of the year.
