NATURE

Cypress Trees, Texas, USA

Cypress (sometimes combined as Cy-Fair for Cypress-Fairbanks, the latter now considered a suburb of Houston) is an unincorporated area of Harris County, Texas, United States located completely inside the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Houston. The Cypress area is located along U.S. Highway 290 (Northwest Freeway) approximately twenty-five miles (40 km) northwest of Downtown Houston. The Cypress urban cluster ranks 50th in the top 100 highest-income urban areas in the United States.

Large scale residential and commercial development beginning in the 1980s transformed the once rural area into one of the Houston area's largest suburban communities.

History

The area around present-day Cypress was populated by Atakapa and Akokisa Indian tribes, but they soon disappeared after the appearance of German settlers in the 1840s; the German heritage is most notably reflected in the names of some of the major thoroughfares of the area, such as Huffmeister and Telge Roads. General Sam Houston and his Texas Army camped in the area on March 22, 1836 on the way to Harrisburg, which is now in East Houston, just days before the Battle of San Jacinto. The area was mostly rural until the 1980s when developers began construction of several master-planned communities. The area is often referred to as Cy-Fair or Cypress-Fairbanks, which comes from when the Big Cypress School and Fairbanks High School combined in the 1930s to form Cy-Fair High School and the Cypress-Fairbanks Independent School District. In March 2008, the Cypress Historical Society (CHS) was formed as a non-profit corporation with its primary mission being "...to discover, educate, promote, collect, preserve and make available to the public, historical documents and artifacts of the Cypress area."  The CHS organization holds regular events aimed at exposing Cypress' residents to the historical and cultural foundation upon which the area was built.

Attractions

• Cypress is home to Tin Hall, one of the oldest continually operating Dance Halls in Texas, in operation since 1889.
• Cypress is home to The Berry Center, an $80 million multi-use complex owned by Cy-Fair ISD. The Berry Center features a football stadium, basketball arena, conference center, auditorium, multimedia production, and catering facility. Live theatre, concerts, exhibitions and other events make the Berry Center an attractive entertainment venue for the entire Cy-Fair area
• Cypress is home to Northwest Forest Conference Center, an 80-acre (320,000 m²) resort and conference center with a life-size replica of the Alamo.
• Cypress is home to the trail head of the planned Cypress Creek Greenway Project, a major parks project which will link major anchor parks along the entirety of Cypress Creek via a Greenbelt complete with Hike & Bike Trails, Horseback Riding, Canoeing and other attractions for outdoors/nature enthusiasts. It will link up with the planned Spring Creek Greenway northeast of Interstate 45. The project will not only provide recreational opportunities to the community, but will serve as a flood control infrastructure
• Cypress has numerous Golf Courses, including:
  • Longwood Golf Club-Cypress, T
  • Blackhorse Golf Club-Cypress, TX
  • Houston National
  • Cypress Lakes Golf Club-Cypress, TX
  • Hearthstone Country Club - in Houston, TX is located a few miles south east of Cypress.
• Cypress Top Historic Park, located at 26026 Old Hempstead Highway in Cypress, TX 77429, is run by Harris County. The park grounds are open daily, and building tours are given on Tuesdays by Harris County historians and volunteers from the Cypress Historical Society.

Bald cypress trees can grow to a height of up to 120 feet (15.2 to 36.6m). Their needle-like leaves grow individually from the twig. Leaves are soft and feathery in appearance, dull light green above and whitish underneath. Cone-shaped "knees" project from submerged roots. The bald cypress is a deciduous (loses its leaves in fall) conifer (cone bearing tree). It is covered with brown or gray bark with long fiber-like or scaly ridges that peel off in strips. Cones are made up of several four-angled, flattened scales. Limbs are often draped with Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides).

Bald cypress trees add grace and beauty to many of Texas' most cherished waterways. A member of the Redwood family, they are among the first trees in Texas to loose their leaves in the fall (hence the name "bald cypress") and the last to bud in the spring. Flower buds appear in late December or early January and bloom in March and April. Pollen is shed, or released, when the flowers bloom. Seeds are produced inside the female cone. The cones ripen from October to December, changing from green to brownish purple, before dropping from the parent tree. Cones can contain anywhere from two to 34 seeds, but generally average 16. Sprouts can form from the cut trunk of bald cypress trees as old as 60 years. Most live up to 600 years, but some individuals have survived 1,200 years.

Bald cypress trees provide habitat for many species. Wild turkey, wood ducks, evening grosbeak and squirrels eat the seeds. Branches provide nesting places for bald eagles and osprey. Rotting knees are used as nesting cavities by warblers. Catfish spawn beneath cypress logs. Bald cypress diffuse and slow floodwaters, reducing flood damage. They also trap sediments and pollutants.

Bald cypress are most abundant in wet, swampy soils of floodplain lakes and along riparian (streamside) corridors.

Bald cypress can be found throughout the eastern states and west as far as central Texas.

The bald cypress is known by other names in parts of its range - Gulf cypress, red cypress, southern cypress, swamp cypress, white cypress and yellow cypress. Taxodium is Greek for "yewlike," which refers to a family of generally small trees prized for hard wood. The species name, distichum, means "two-ranked" and refers to the two rows in which the leaves grow. Cypress is also called the "wood eternal" because the heartwood is resistant to decay. Bald cypress is used for heavy construction, including docks, warehouses, boats and bridges, and was heavily logged in much of Texas. The Choctaw Indians used the bark for string and rope. The Seminoles found bald cypress useful for making houses, canoes, and ceremonial objects.

Originally found from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cypress,_Texas