Identifying a Tree with Round Cones & Tiny Needles: Bald Cypress

A 40-ft tree in western Illinois with golf-ball-sized cones, tiny needles, and autumn color change is almost certainly bald cypress (Taxodium distichum)—a deciduous conifer, not a pine.

Key Traits

• Needles: ¼–¾″, linear, two-ranked, turn cinnamon in fall before dropping.
• Cones: Globose, ¾–1″, disintegrate at maturity.
• Bark: Fibrous, reddish-brown, exfoliating.
• Habitat: Wet bottomlands, but adaptable to drier sites.

Search “bald cypress” images to confirm. It’s a magnificent, long-lived native for moist soils.