152 REPORT OF NEW JERSEY STATE MUSEUM. 



Next to the Pitch Pine, this is the most characteristic tree 

 of the Pine Barrens, following the courses of all the streams 

 and spreading out in many places to form immense cedar swamps. 

 Outside of the Pine Barrens, it occurs casually in the Middle dis- 

 trict, the Cape May peninsula and in the counties just north of 

 our limits, while a colony is also reported from the shore of 

 Greenwood Lake. 



In the primaeval Cedar Swamps the straight trunks rise on 

 every side like telegraph poles, which many of them resemble 

 both in height and diameter. Their roots are covered with 

 masses of wet Sphagnum moss, and numerous shrubs and herbs 

 more or less peculiar to these dark retreats abound. The tops are 

 closely interlaced in a dense canopy which nearly excludes the 

 sunlight, and where one has an opportunity of surveying the 

 landscape the courses of the streams can always be traced by the 

 dark blue-green lines of pointed cedar tops which stand out 

 against the lighter green background of the pines. The bluish 

 berry-like cones, when still covered with the whitish bloom that 

 marks their early stages of growth, are sometimes very conspic- 

 uous as the light strikes them, and I recall one occasion in partic- 

 ular on the eve of a heavy thunder storm, when the edge of a ecdar 

 swamp stood out in relief against an almost black sky and the 

 masses of fruit on the topmost branches shown in the peculiar 

 clear light with the gleam of silver against the deep-green foli- 

 age. Unfortunately the portable saw-mill is sounding the doom 

 of the Cedar Swamps, and piles of yellow sawdust now mark 

 many a site where a few years ago stretched one of these dark 

 retreats. If fire can be kept out and draining discouraged, the 

 cedars will probably grow again; indeed in some swamps that 

 have been completely burned over the young cedars, after a lapse 

 of a few years, may be seen rising everywhere among the bare 

 poles left by the flames. Draining or damming for cranberry 

 bogs proves fatal to them, however, and many of the old swamps 

 are probably gone forever. 



Fl. — ^Early April to mid-April. Cones mature in late summer 

 of the first season and persist for a year at least. 



Middle District. — Camden, Sicklerville (S), Glassboro, Swedesboro, Cen- 

 terton (S), Beaver Dam (S), Dividing Creek. 



