I. 6. THE WHITE CEDAR. 99 



The white cedar connects the arbor vitse with the cypresses. 

 It has the characters of both ; the scale-like, imbricate leaves 

 and fan-shaped branches of the former, and the lofty port and 

 globular or many-sided fruit of the latter. 



In Massachusetts, it grows only in swamps which are inun- 

 dated for the greater part of the year. Several of these, as 

 between Boston and Mansfield, and Taunton and New Bed- 

 ford, have been penetrated by rail-roads, but before then, the 

 trees were nearly inaccessible, except in the middle of summer, 

 or the heart of winter. The trunk is very straight and tall, 

 tapering very gradually, and, towards the summit, set with 

 short, small, nearly horizontal, irregular branches, forming a 

 small but beautiful head, above which the leading shoot waves 

 like a slender plume. The bark on the smaller branches is of 

 a brownish or purplish green, often mottled with white lichens. 

 On the trunk, it is reddish, scaling off in thin scales, thready, 

 and broken on the upper part by furrows, which are deeper, 

 nearer the base, on old trees. These are long, and run in a 

 spiral line round the trunk once in thirty or more feet, indicating 

 a corresponding twist in the fibres of the wood. The smaller 

 branchlets are crowded, and irregularly divaricate, or fan -shaped, 

 like those of the arbor vitas. The recent shoots have a few oppo- 

 site leaves scattered along their sides, the bases of which seem to 

 form a part of the greenish bark. In two or three years, these 

 leaves, with a portion of bark adhering to them, scale off, leav- 

 ing the purplish brown bark of the branches and young stocks 

 perfectly smooth, and resembling the bark of a cherry tree. The 

 leaves are very small, scale-like, with triangular, sharp points, 

 and imbricate in opposite pairs, forming four rows, completely 

 covering the compressed ultimate branchlets, which seem to be 

 compound leaves. Each leaf has, like those of the arbor vitas, 

 a minute tubercle on the back, near the base. 



The flowers are extremely minute. The male consists of 

 several shield-like scales, protecting about three stamens; the 

 female, of a few opposite pairs of thickened scales, containing 

 each two ovules, in bottle-shaped sacs. The fruits are com- 

 pound, globose, or many-sided, (about ten — ) cone-like heads, of 

 the size of a large pea. These are at first green, afterwards 



