Bald cypress: Endangered or expanding species?

Abstract

Bald cypress [ Taxodium distichum (L.) Rich. ] has been highly prized for lumber since colonial times especially in the southeastern United States. By the early 1900's, expansion of railway facilities had helped greatly to widen the market for cypress lumber. Production peaked in 1913, when more than one billion board feet were milled (3). As large tracts of old growth were depleted, output gradually declined. It still totaled in excess of 400 million board feet in 1940, but dwindled rapidly after World War II. In 1954, the last year for which the Bureau of the Census issued such data, sawmills cut 240 million board feet (1). At present, only a handful of mills reportedly use cypress. Today the view is widely accepted that the cut-over cypress forests in the southeastern United States are not reproducing naturally (5). Is cypress really an endangered species? Exactly what is the status of our present resources? Can the species be restored to economic significance? These questions are at least partially answered by the present analysis. The data are from statistically designed timber resource surveys made by the United States Forest Service on a state-bystate basis at periodic intervals. In the southeastern United States the interval is about 10 years. Each statewide survey is planned to achieve sampling errors of no greater than plus or minus 5% per billion