I. 7. THE RED CEDAR. 103 



by holes produced by the loss of branches, and by knots left in 

 the attempt to make it a shapely tree by pruning. It is covered 

 with a bark, reddish within, and usually rough externally, with 

 long, stringy, brownish, loose scales or ribbons, but when long 

 exposed, smooth and whitish. The furrows separating the 

 stringy scales, often take a slightly spiral direction, indicating 

 a twist in the woody fibre similar to what is observed in the 

 white cedar. The lateral, crowded, leafy twigs are alternate, 

 and made up of four rows of leaves, imbricately arranged in 

 opposite pairs, and connected by a thread of woody fibre. The 

 leaves are very short, minute, fleshy, convex, and pointed, but 

 not sharp, with a depressed gland on the outer side ; each pair 

 closely embracing the lower margin and base of the pair above 

 it. On the growing shoots, the leaves are much longer, rigid, 

 and sharp-pointed, in opposite and somewhat distant pairs, or 

 threes. These leaves gradually turn light brown, like the bark, 

 and in a few years scale off, leaving the now purplish bark per- 

 fectly smooth, which it continues to be till the branch is an inch 

 or two in diameter, when the epidermis begins to crack and 

 scale off. "A singular variety sometimes appears in the young 

 shoots, especially those which issue from the base of the trees. 

 This consists in an elongation of the leaves to five or six times 

 their usual length, while they become spreading, acerose, con- 

 siderably remote from each other, and irregular in their inser- 

 tion, being either opposite or ternate. These shoots are so dis- 

 similar to the parent tree, that they have been repeatedly mis- 

 taken for individuals of a different species."* 



The barren and fertile flowers are on different trees, rarely on 

 the same. The barren flowers are in small, terminal, oblong, 

 yellowish brown aments, from one-tenth to one-fifth of an inch 

 long, formed of four to six pairs of shield-like scales, each pro- 

 tecting about four yellow anthers. The fertile flowers are still 

 more minute. They consist of, usually, six fleshy, oblong, ob- 

 tuse, bluish or violet scales, in pairs, or threes, united at base, 



* Bigelow's Florula, 2d edition, p. 370. — This disposition to the ternate arrange- 

 ment, and acicular shape of the leaves, is very common in this tree, and, with its 

 tendency to spread near the ground, shows its near relationship to the common 

 juniper, a species of the same genus. 



