Bald cypress is a conifer that drops the needles, which is where the name comes from, and a swamp tree that grows perfectly well in an ordinary garden bed, which is the part most people find hard to believe. Autumn color is rust and cinnamon, held late, and the winter silhouette of a mature tree is one of the great shapes of the Southern landscape.

Taxodium distichum is the river bottom species, buttressed at the base and long-lived past the point of comfort; individuals in the Black River of North Carolina have been dated beyond two thousand years. Taxodium ascendens, the pond cypress, is narrower and finer, with needles pressed close along ascending shoots. Both send up knees in standing water and mostly do not bother in a dry site. Plant either in sun and almost any soil, wet or not.