Twentysome years ago, we planted six bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) along our creek. They were maybe 5 or 6 years old at the time, about four feet tall. In fact, we nealy lost one, because something--a hungry rabbit, maybe?--gnawed off most of the bark just above the soil line. But that tree, and the others, survived, and are now forty feet high and still stretching for sky. They'll reach a hundred feet or more at their maturity. These glorious trees can live a thousand years, so they'll outlive me by several lifetimes--a lovely thought.
And just as lovely: their beautiful rust-colored fall foliage. Our fall colors here in the Hill Country are muted reds and golds, none of that flaming show-off scarlet you Northeasterns have, or the banks of glowing golden aspens in the West. So we wait with great anticipation for our cypress trees to turn.
But of course, there's more. The bald cypress, like some other members of the Cupressaceae family, contains the tumor inhibitors taxodione and taxodone. Perhaps some day it will help in the fight against cancer.
And another bonus. The seed cones you see in this photo will open as the days grow colder, dropping dozens of wedge-shaped seeds. They're covered in a resinous coating that keeps insects, rodents, and birds from gobbling them straightaway. Next spring, these seeds will germinate and produce dozens of cypress seedlings. We've transplanted fifteen or twenty of these, into the marshy patch of cattails and willows below the dam and along the creek downstream. They're now ten to twelve feet high, happy and flourishing. Who knows? In three or four hundred years, MeadowKnoll could host a cypress bog. Wouldn't I love to see it?
Reading note. "The Cupressus disticha [Cupressus is the family name for bald cypress] stands in the first order of North American trees. Its majestic stature is surprising; and . . . we are struck with a kind of awe, at beholding the stateliness of the trunk, lifting its cumbrous top toward the skies . . . a gran straight column eighty or ninety feet high . . . where eagles have their secure nests and cranes and storks their temporary resting-places.--The Travels of William Bertram