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Taxodium ascendens Brongn.
Pond Cypress
Pond-cypress
Florida native
This is a common tree of flatwood ponds and lake margins throughout most of Florida. The range extends mostly in the coastal plain through the southeastern states from Louisiana to Virginia plus Delaware.
Pond cypress can most easily be distinguished from bald cypress by the mostly upright branchlets covered with tiny awl-shaped appressed leaves. Bald cypress has spreading branchlets with linear spreading leaves. Taxodium ascendens is a deciduous tree which can reach 40m (130 ft.) but more typically grows to 25m (80 ft.) in height.
In several Florida locations, large groves of dwarf cypress can be found that are no more than 5m (16 ft.) tall even though they are hundreds of years old. Read more about the dwarf cypress in Tate's Hell at Wild Florida Photo Dwarf Cypress page.
Taxodium ascendens is a member of the Cupressaceae - Cypress family.
Other species of the Taxodium genus in the Wild Florida Photo database:
Taxodium distichum - BALD-CYPRESS
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species
iNaturalist profile for this species
USDA Plant Profile for this species
Date record last modified: Feb 13, 2024
