Baldcypress Tress

Along the Bayou Coquille Trail, we encountered the Baldcypress, which is a long-lived, deciduous wetland species that grows along rivers, streams, and creeks as well as in swamps with slow moving water. It can live up to 600 years old. It is a legendary tree of the Deep South and most known for its "knees," moss-draped crown, and buttressed trunk. "Knees" of the baldcypress root systems when they are growing in water. They are cone-shaped extensions of the root sticking out from the ground. They are thought to function as the trees' means of obtaining oxygen for the roots during flooded conditions.
Baldcypress trees occur in the coastal plains along the Gulf and the Atlantic Ocean and north up through the Mississippi River Valley. It is a very important tree in the swampland ecosystem. It is valuable for wildlife food and cover. Old-growth baldcypress has a flattened crown usually dangling with Spanish moss. Some river edges still have stumps of giant cypress trees that were logged in the early 1900s.