Bald Cypress

I found this lovely "little" specimen right by a pond, but some the nearby trees of the same kind were actually half in the water.
The Bald Cypresses are one of the few deciduous conifers in the USA and this grows in a path from Texas, through Florida, up to Virginia. They lose their leaves in the Winter and grow them back very quickly.
The Montezuma Cypress is very similar to the Bald Cypress but does not produce "knees" much (occasionally but not often or many). The "knees" tell all. This particular tree doesn't have many knees, but the one next to it did. Cypress Knees are when the roots grow up out of the ground and go straight back down, this can either look like wooden spikes or just a bunch of rounded knobs surrounding the trunk. The leaves are reminiscent of pine, but lay flat in opposite pairs along a thin branchlet. The branchlets shoot off down the stem in a spiraling fashion. The leaves are flat, light green, pointed, and 1/2 - 3/4 of an inch long. The branchlets are 2-4 inches long. That's another difference with the Montezuma, it's branchlets get up to 6 inches long.
This might give you a slightly better idea of size of the leaves. Those right there in the middle are cones. Yep, they're round. Yep, they look like battered green golf balls. They are about an inch in diameter and may have a slightly waxy look to them. It's important to remember that these cones turn grey-green, not brown like most other conifer tree's cones.
There are both male and female flowers the male flowers are up to 4 inches long (female flowers are shorter); they are green hanging cords with a whole bunch of little buds off the sides.
The bark as you can see is reddish-greyish and quite flaky looking. The trunk is rough with deep ridges, but the branches are more like scaly paper.
It's a beautiful tree and gives great shade, but not so great for climbing. Maybe I'll find some good climbing trees eventually, but all the ones with supportive branches would need a ladder to get to.