So sorry I missed this back here. Your success makes perfect sense as you probably gathered your seed from last year which means it WAS stratified. Good for you. That white thingie is a tap root. The tap root is always sent out first. Plant it. The tap root goes down into your medium... I planted it up once- duh. Made sense to me at the time. Once it is in the medium or planted directly outside in the location you want it in, you should see top growth in no time at all. This is too cool! I am so happy you were able to germinate a bald cypress!

Whenever I'm not sure which way to plant a seed, I lay it flat and let the plant choose which way to grow. Once I planted 100 seeds of Bunya Pine (Araucaria bidwilli) upside-down. Most eventually grew and righted themselves, but this delayed their growth by several weeks. Live and learn! PF

I planted a little over 200 gladiolas upside down a few years ago. Gosh, those things should come with an installation guide. I wondered why everyone else's were coming up and mine still weren't. A girlfriend came over to see if my bulbs were rotted after yelling me for overwatering them for a week. She dug one up to see if it was mushy and asked if they had all been planted that way. I said yes. She was reduced to fits of laughter. I have now begun to plant bulbs that I am unsure of the way you mentioned to avoid these types of embarrassing situations. It works. Ma Nature rights it so your advice of laying it flat or sideways is very good.