Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (21) View all

Common forest trees of North Carolina

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  • wcu_great_smoky_mtns-9678.jpg
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  • FOREST TREES, CYPRESS (Taxodium distichum Rich.) THE cypress, or bald cypress, is a tree found exclusively in deep swamps which are usually flooded for long periods at a time, and on wet stream banks and bottomlands in the lower Atlantic Coastal Plain and Mississippi Valley region. Its straight trunk with numerous ascending branches, and narrow conical outline makes the tree one of CYPRESS One-half natural size. considerable beauty. In old age, the tree generally has a broad fluted or buttressed base, a smooth slowly tapering trunk and a broad, open, flat top of a few heavy branches and numerous small branch- lets. The original-growth timber attained heights of 80 to 130 feet and diameters of 5 to 10 feet. The bark is silvery to cinnamon-red and finely divided by numerous longitudinal fissures. The leaves are about one-half to three-fourths of an inch in length, arranged in feather-like fashion along two sides of small branchlets, which fall in the autumn with the leaves still attached; or they are scale-like and much shorter, light green, and sometimes silvery below. The fruit is a rounded cone, or "ball," about one inch in diameter, consisting of thick irregular scales. The wood is light, soft, easily worked, varies in color from a light sapwood to dark-brown heart- wood, and is particularly durable in contact with the soil. Hence it is in demand for exterior trim of buildings, greenhouse planking, boat and ship building, shingles, posts, poles and crossties. 16
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Object’s are ‘parent’ level descriptions to ‘children’ items, (e.g. a book with pages).