Leaf guide › Conifers
Bald cypress
Taxodium distichum
A conifer that drops its needles every fall, turning rusty orange over southern swamps and rivers before standing bare all winter.
- Fall color
- OrangeBronze
- Turns
- Late
- Leaves
- Flat needles in two rows, like a feather
- Size
- Needles ½–¾ in. long
- Found in
- Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest
How to recognize it
- Soft, flat needles set in two rows along thin green twigs, so each sprig looks like a small feather.
- In fall the needles turn rusty orange, and the little twigs drop off with them. The tree stands bare all winter.
- Knobby “knees” poke up from the roots around trees growing in water.
- In wet ground, the trunk flares out into a wide, buttressed base.
- Round, wrinkled cones about an inch across that break apart when ripe.
Where to find it
Look for it in swamps, river bottoms, and along lake edges across the Southeast and the Mississippi Valley, and north along the Atlantic coast to Maryland and Delaware, where the cypress swamps along the Pocomoke River are among the northernmost. It’s also planted in parks and along streets well outside its natural range, and it grows fine on dry ground.
Easy to confuse with
Worth knowing
Bald cypress is one of the few conifers that loses all its needles every year, like tamarack and larch, while most evergreens hold on to theirs. Its wood resists rot, which made it a prized building timber, and the trees can live for many centuries; some in southern swamps are well over 1,000 years old.
Common questions
What color does bald cypress turn in fall?
Bald cypress turns rusty orange to cinnamon brown, then drops its needles along with the small twigs that hold them. In a swamp, the orange crowns above dark water are one of the late highlights of the season.
When does bald cypress change color?
Late. It usually turns after most of the hardwoods around it, from late October into November, and it keeps its color into November in places like Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
How can you tell bald cypress from tamarack and larch?
Bald cypress needles grow singly in two flat rows along thin twigs, like a feather, and turn rusty orange. Tamarack and larch needles grow in tufts of 10 to 20 on short spurs and turn gold. Bald cypress grows in southern swamps; tamarack in northern bogs.
Is bald cypress an evergreen?
No. It’s a conifer, but it’s deciduous: it loses all its needles every fall and grows new ones in spring, which is where the “bald” in its name comes from.
Where does bald cypress grow?
In the lower 48, it grows wild in swamps and river bottoms across the Southeast and the Mississippi Valley and north along the Atlantic coast to Maryland and Delaware. It’s also planted in parks and along streets far outside that range.
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