VALUE AND USE
SPECIES: Taxodium distichum | Baldcypress 



WOOD PRODUCTS VALUE : 
Baldcypress wood is highly resistant to decay, making it valuable for a
multitude of uses [8].  It is used in building construction, fence
posts, planking in boats, doors, blinds, flooring, shingles, caskets,
interior trim, and cabinetry [11,46,51].


IMPORTANCE TO LIVESTOCK AND WILDLIFE : 
Baldcypress seeds are eaten by wild turkey, wood ducks, evening
grosbeak, and squirrels.  The seed is a minor part of the diet of
waterfowl and wading birds.  Yellow-throated warblers forage in the
Spanish moss often found hanging on the branches of old cypress trees
[4,48,53].  Cypress domes provide watering places for a variety of
birds, mammals, and reptiles of the surrounding pinelands [31].


PALATABILITY : 
NO-ENTRY


NUTRITIONAL VALUE : 
NO-ENTRY


COVER VALUE : 
The tops of cypress trees provide nesting sites for bald eagles and
ospreys.  Warblers use the old decaying knees for nesting cavities, and
catfish spawn below cypress logs.  Cypress domes provide breeding sites
for a number of frogs, toads, and salamanders.  Cypress domes also
provide nesting sites for herons and egrets [22,30].


VALUE FOR REHABILITATION OF DISTURBED SITES : 
Baldcypress has been successfully planted on the margins of surface-
mined lakes in southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana, and western
Kentucky [9].

Cypress swamps help to maintain high regional water tables, and they can
also be used to provide advanced wastewater treatment for small
communities [21].  Research has shown that cypress domes can serve as
tertiary sewage treatment facilities for improving water quality and
recharging groundwater [25].

Methods of collecting, extracting, cleaning, storing, and sowing
baldcypress seeds to produce nursery-grown seedlings have been
described [48,53].


OTHER USES AND VALUES : 
Baldcypress has been planted as a water tolerant tree species used for
shading and canopy closure to help reduce populations of the Anopheles
mosquito [5].

Baldcypress has been successfully planted throughout its range as an
ornamental and along roadsides [11].


MANAGEMENT CONSIDERATIONS : 
Silviculture:  Canopy thinning has been reported as the best management
practice for regenerating cypress.  Thinning controls competition and
allows overhead light for newly germinated seedlings [20,53].

Animal damage:  The swamp rodent nutria often clips or uproots newly
planted cypress seedlings before the root systems are fully established,
thus killing the seedlings.  When nutria populations are high, entire
plantings are often destroyed in a few days [43].

Insects and disease:  The fungus Stereum taxodi causes brown pocket rot
known as "pecky cypress" that attacks the heartwood of older living
baldcypress trees.  The fungus most often gains entrance in the crown
and works its way down, destroying a considerable part of the heartwood
at the base of the tree [53].  The forest tent caterpillar (Malacosma
disstria) and fruit-tree leafroller (Archips argyrospila) larvae webb
and feed on cypress needles as soon as the buds break and small leaflets
expand, causing dieback and sometimes mortality [27,53].

Related categories for Species: Taxodium distichum | Baldcypress