Is a baldcypress a gymnosperm?

Answer 1

Taxodium distichum, also known as baldcypress, bald cypress, or swamp cypress, is a species of deciduous conifer native to the southeastern United States.

Scientific classification

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Pinophyta (Gymnosperm)

Class: Pinopsida

Order: Pinales

Family: Cupressaceae ( Gymnosperms )

Genus: Taxodium

Species: T. distichum


Binomial name

Taxodium distichum

From the above information it is clear that 'baldcypress'

is a Gymnosperm for sure .


Source := wikipedia

Answer 2

1

Answer 3

Yes, bald cypress (two words) is a gymnosperm.

Answer 4

It is a very ancient plant, that's for sure. Wikipedia says this about it:

Baldcypress is monoecious. Male and female strobili mature in one growing season from buds formed the previous year. The cones are green maturing gray-brown, globular, 2-3.5 cm in diameter. They hold from 9 to 15 4-sided scales, each bearing up to two triangle-shaped seeds. Thus, number of seeds per cone ranges from 2 to 34. Seeds remain viable for less than one year.

The seeds are 5-10 mm long, the largest of any species in the cypress family, and are produced every year. Cones disintegrate when mature to release the large seeds which then disperse in two ways. One is by water: the cone floats and moves on water until flooding recedes or the cone is deposited on shore. The second is by wildlife: squirrels eat seeds but usually leave some scales fall of the cone they pick.

Although vigorous saplings and stump sprouts can produce viable seed, most baldcypress do not reliably produce seed until they are about 30 years old or 8 inches in diameter.

[edit] Early Growth

Seeds do not germinate under water and rarely germinate on well drained soils; seedlings normally become established on soil that is continuously saturated, but not flooded, for 1 to 3 months.

After germination, seedlings must grow quickly to escape floodwaters: they often reach a height of 8 to 30 inches in their first year. Seedlings die if inundated for more than about 2-4 weeks. Natural regeneration is therefore prevented on sites that are flooded during the growing season.

[edit] Mature Trees

Baldcypress is a large tree, reaching 30-45 m tall and trunk diameter of up to 3 m. The leaves are borne on deciduous branchlets that are are spirally arranged on the stem but twisted at the base to lie in two horizontal ranks, 1-2 cm long and 1-2 mm broad; unlike most other species in the family Cupressaceae, it loses the leaves in the winter months, hence the name 'Bald.'
A bald cypress during the winter.
A bald cypress during the winter.

Baldcypress grow very slowly, and some individuals can live over 1,000 years. It may difficult to determine the age of an old tree because of frequent missing or false rings of stemwood caused by variable and stressful growing environments.

Baldcypress growing in swamps have a peculiarity of growth called cypress knees. These are woody projections sent above the ground or water that are part of the root system. Their function was once thought to be to provide oxygen to the roots, which grow in the low dissolved oxygen (DO) waters typical of a swamp (as in mangroves). However, there is little evidence for this; in fact, roots of swamp-dwelling specimens whose knees are removed do not decrease in oxygen content and the trees continue to thrive. Another more likely function is that of structural support and stabilization. Baldcypress growing on flood-prone sites tend to form buttressed bases, but trees grown on drier sites may lack this feature. Buttressed bases and a strong, intertwined root system allows them to resist very strong winds: even hurricanes rarely overturn them.

[edit] Death

Many agents damage cypress trees : insects like the cypress flea beetle or the baldcypress leafroller (Archips goyerana) (closely related to the fruit tree leafroller) can seriously damage cypress trees by destroying leaves, cones or the bark of tree. A few fungi attack the sapwood and the heartwood of the tree, but they don't usually cause serious damage. However, there are two main lethal damaging agents for a cypress:

* The fungus Stereum taxodi causes a brown pocket rot known as "pecky cypress". It attacks the heartwood of living trees, usually from the crown down to the roots.
* Nutria clip and unroot young cypress seedlings, sometimes killing a whole plantation in a short amount of time.

[edit] Cypress Wood

Baldcypress has been noted for its high merchantable yields. In virgin stands, yields from 112 to 196 m3/ha were common, and some stands might have exceeded 1000 m3/ha. Cypress swamps are some of the world's most productive ecosystems.

Baldcypress wood has long been valued for its water resistance. Still-usable prehistoric wood is often found in swamps in New Jersey and occasionally as far north as New England although it is more common in the southeast. The somewhat-mineralized wood is mined from some swamps in the southeast, and is highly prized for specialty uses such as wood carvings. Pecky cypress, caused by the fungus Strereum taxodii is used where durability of wood is an important factor, and as decorative wall paneling.

The Baldcypress might not be a gymnosperm though which conifers are (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnosperm)

The gymnosperms (Gymnospermae) are a group of spermatophyte seed-bearing plants with ovules on the edge or blade of an open sporophyll, the sporophylls usually arranged in cone-like structures. The other major group of seed-bearing plants, the angiosperms, have ovules enclosed in a carpel, a sporophyll with fused margins. The term gymnosperm comes from the Greek word gumnospermos, meaning "naked seeds" and referring to the unenclosed condition of the seeds, as when they are produced they are found naked on the scales of a cone or similar structure.

Gymnosperms are heterosporous, producing microspores that develop into pollen grains and megaspores that are retained in an ovule. After fertilization (joining of the micro- and megaspore), the resulting embryo, along with other cells comprising the ovule, develops into a seed. The seed is a sporophyte resting stage.
Coast Douglas-fir cone
Coast Douglas-fir cone

In early classification schemes, the gymnosperms (Gymnospermae) "naked seed" plants were regarded as a "natural" group. However, certain fossil discoveries suggest that the angiosperms evolved from a gymnosperm ancestor, which would make the gymnosperms a paraphyletic group if all extinct taxa are included. Modern cladistics only accepts taxa that are monophyletic, traceable to a common ancestor and inclusive of all descendants of that common ancestor. So, while the term 'gymnosperm' is still widely used for non-angiosperm seed-bearing plants, the plant species once treated as gymnosperms are usually distributed among four groups, which can be given equal rank as divisions within the Kingdom Plantae.

With regard to extant gymnosperms, molecular phylogenies of living taxa have conflicted with morphological datasets with regard to whether they comprise a monophyletic or paraphyletic group with respect to angiosperms. At issue is whether the Gnetophyta are the sister taxon to angiosperms, or whether they are sister to, or nested within, other extant gymnosperms.