DENDROLOGY. 147 



have adopted the first denomination, which is not unknown where 

 the second is habitually used, because the tree belongs to a 

 different genus from the junipers. In Massachusetts, Vermont, 

 New Hampshire and the more northern parts of America, the 

 arbor vitse is called white cedar, but we have thought proper to 

 retain the name for the species we are now considering. The 

 white cedar grows only in wet grounds. In the maritime districts 

 of New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia, it nearly fills the extensive 

 marshes which lie adjacent to the salt meadows, and are exposed 

 in high tides to be overflowed by the sea. In New Jersey it 

 covers almost alone the whole surface of the swamps. 



The white cedar is 70 or 80 feet high, and sometimes more 

 than three feet in diameter. When the trees are close and 

 compressed, the trunk is straight, perpendicular and destitute of 

 branches to the height of 50 or 60 feet. The epidermis is 

 very thin on the young stocks ; but as they grow older it becomes 

 thick, of a soft filaceous texture, of a reddish color, and similar 

 to that of an old vine. When cut, a yellow transparent resin of 

 an agreeable odor exudes, of which a few ounces could hardly 

 be collected in a summer from a tree of three feet in circumfer- 

 ence. The foliage is ever green : each leaf is a little branch 

 numerously subdivided, and composed of small, acute, imbricated 

 scales, on the back of which a minute gland is discerned with 

 the lens. In the angle of these ramifications grow the flowers, 

 which open in April or May and are scarcely visible, and which 

 produce very small rugged cones of a greenish tint, that change 

 to bluish towards autumn, when they open to release the fine 

 seeds. 



The wood is light, soft, fine-grained and easily wrought. 

 When perfectly seasoned and exposed for some time to the light 

 it is of a rosy hue. It has a strong aromatic odor, which it 

 preserves as long as it is guarded from humidity. The perfect 

 wood resists the succession of dryness and moisture longer than 

 that of any other species, and for this quality, principally, as well 

 as its extreme lightness, it is employed for shingles, which last 

 from 40 to 50 years. The superior fitness of this wood for 

 various household utensils, has given rise, in Philadelphia, to a 



