A young bald cypress is symmetrical and pyramidal; as it matures, it develops a coarse, wide-spreading head. Its tapering trunk is usually 30 metres (about 100 feet) tall and one metre in diameter. The reddish-brown bark weathers to an ashy gray. An old tree is usually hollow and is known as pecky, or peggy, cypress in the lumber trade, because of small holes in the wood caused by a fungus. A tree growing in wet soil is strongly buttressed about the base, and its horizontal roots often send conical, woody projections called “knees” above the waterline. The knees, whose presumed function is still poorly understood, are popular household ornaments.

The smaller pond, or upland, cypress of the southeastern U.S., a variety (T. distichum, variety imbricatum) of the bald cypress, sometimes is considered to be a separate species (T. ascendens). It has erect branches and shorter, more scalelike leaves.

The closely related Montezuma or Mexican cypress (T. mucronatum) is native to the southwestern U.S., Mexico, and Guatemala. It is distinguished from the bald cypress by its shorter, persistent leaves and larger cones. It rarely produces knees.