Swamp Cottonwood is the least common and least-known of the eastern cottonwoods, restricted to swamps, sloughs, and bottomland forests that flood for extended periods each year. Its leaves are distinctive among cottonwoods, being quite rounded and woolly-white on the underside when young. It ranges across the lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coastal Plain, where its bottomland forest habitat has been greatly reduced by drainage and conversion. It is an important mast tree for wood ducks and other wetland wildlife.
Habitat
Swamps, sloughs, oxbow lakes, and frequently flooded bottomland forests of the lower Mississippi Valley and Gulf Coastal Plain.
Diet
Seeds and buds consumed by wood ducks, mallards, and small mammals; wetland forests provide critical nesting and wintering habitat.
How common
Uncommon
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