Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich.
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Authority
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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Family
Cupressaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Tree to 40 m, the trunk concavely thickened below and conspicuously buttressed at least in mature trees; bark reddish to light brown, with shallow furrows, becoming flaky; leafy branchlets mostly spreading horizontally; lvs narrowly linear, 5–15 mm, divergent, appearing 2-ranked on the branchlets, the free portion of the lf basally contracted and twisted; panicles ca 1 dm, initiated in the autumn, developing in the spring; cones pendulous at the ends of the twigs, 2–3 cm thick, with dull, rugose scales; 2n=22. Brownwater riverine and lacustrine margins and swamps, occasionally in brackish water, chiefly on the coastal plain; Del. (and locally and perhaps only recently n. to L.I.) to Fla. and Tex., n. in the Mississippi Valley to s. Ind. We have only the widespread var. distichum, as here described. Var. imbricarium (Nutt.) Croom (T. ascendens), the pond-cypress, extends n. only to N.C.
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Common Names
bald cypress