Water Tupelo, Cotton Gum

This is an amazing plant. When I was young, I was not aware that any trees grew in Louisiana swamps besides bald cypress. Since then, I...Read More have learned of Pond cypress, water tupelo, introduced Chinese tallow, and, more recently, Swamp tupelo (biflora). Of these, the water tupelo(aquatica), is my favorite. The thing that I like the most about these is that, unlike the bald and pond cypresses, which have a very veiny buttress, the water tupelo has a smooth round swollen buttress, often covered in dark green moss and accompanied by other plants, such as resurrection fern, sedges, and even native orchids.

On older trees, I have often seen some twisted and mangled trunks, sometimes with hollows and strange-shaped bumps. They even, on occasion, make knee-like protrusions from the ground, similar to cypress. The leaves are lighter and fleshier than those of N. sylvatica and N. biflora and are often host to caterpillars and beetles in spring. As a result, these trees play a vital role in seasonal wetlands, in which the feces deposited by the caterpillars provide food for fish and other aquatic species below.

Like Taxodium distichum and T. ascendens, these trees have a much greater zone. They are native here in zone 8b and even grow further south in 9a and 9b.

Unlike cypress, however, these trees have virtually no drought tolerance. They require wet soil that floods on occasion. They also rarely grow in permanently flooded pools like cypress and require some sort of draining period. They grow much faster than cypress and much faster than N. biflora and sylvatica and make larger fruits than either of the other Nyssa species.

However, N. aquatica trees are susceptible to a number of pests, including (as stated above) beetles. They also get stem canker on lower branches and, as a result, older trees usually possess only a few limbs as a canopy. These setbacks aside, this is a wonderfully unique tree.