CONIFER. 95 
SILVA OF NORTH AMERICA. 
it attains its greatest dimensions on rich alluvial bottom-lands, and in Kansas and eastern and central 
Nebraska grows usually on dry limestone river-bluffs, where, before the coming of white men, it 
often formed groves of considerable extent. Farther west it is smaller, and is usually scattered in 
isolated individuals along the rocky banks of cations and lakes, generally at elevations of six or seven 
thousand feet above the sea, sometimes, in the valley of the Columbia River in southern British 
Columbia, growing in bogs ;' in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona it is exceedingly rare. 
The wood of Juniperus Virginians is light, soft, close-grained, brittle, and not strong; it contains 
numerous very obscure medullary rays and broad conspicuous bands of small summer-cells, and is dull 
red, with thin nearly white sapwood, very fragrant, easily worked, and extremely durable in contact 
with the soil. The specific gravity of the absolutely dry wood is 0.4826, a cubic foot weighing 30.70 
pounds. It is largely used for posts and railway-ties, the sills of buildings and the interior finish of 
houses, and for lining closets and chests in which woolens are preserved against the attacks of moths ;? 
it is also employed in cabinet-making and almost exclusively in the manufacture of lead-pencils,? while 
its lightness, durability, cheerful color, and pleasant fragrance recommend it to the makers of pails and 
tubs and many other small articles. 
A decoction of the fruit and leaves is occasionally used medicinally, and an infusion of the berries 
as a diuretic,* and in homeopathic remedies.® 
and is used principally in perfumery.® 
Oil of Red Cedar is distilled from the leaves and wood, 
The virtue of the Red Cedar was extolled in Morton’s New English Canaan, published in 1632 ;7 
and other early European travelers praised its qualities; it was described in 1640 by Parkinson,* who 
united it with the Juniper of Bermuda, and, according to Aiton,’ it was introduced into English gardens 
in 1664. 
' Macoun, Cat. Can. Pl. 462 (Juniperus occidentalis). 
2«The Dust and Shavings of Cedar, laid amongst Linnen or 
Woollen, destroys the moth and all Verminous Insects : It never 
rots, breeding no Worm, by which many other Woods are consumed 
and destroyed. Of Cedar there are many sorts ; this in Carolina 
is esteemed of equal Goodness for Grain, Smell and Colour with 
the Bermudian Cedar, which of all the West Indian is esteemed the 
most excellent.” (Thomas Ashe, Carolina, or a Description of the 
Present State of that Country, 5.) 
8 The straightest grained and most easily worked Cedar wood 
is obtained from the swamps near the western coast of the Florida 
peninsula, and large factories have been established at Cedar Keys, 
Florida, and at other points in the southern states, by German 
manufacturers, to cut up the wood for pencil-making. 
4 Jenks, Am. Jour. Pharm. xiv. 235. — Johnson, Man. Med. Bot. 
N. Am. 261. 
An ointment is prepared by boiling the fresh leaves of Juniperus 
Virginiana with lard, which is occasionally employed in the United 
States as a substitute for savine cerate in the treatment of blis- 
ters, and the powdered leaves are used for the same purpose (U. S. 
Dispens. ed. 16, 1833). 
Cases of poisoning from the use of the volatile oil, which has a 
reputation for producing abortion, are recorded. (See Boston Med. 
and Surg. Jour. xl. 469.) 
° Millspaugh, Am. Med. Pl. in Homeopathic Remedies, ii. 166, t, 
166. 
6 Burkett, Proc. Linn. Soc. i. 58. 
7 “Cedar, of this sorte there is abundance ; and this wood was 
such as Saloman used for the building of that glorious temple at 
Hierusalem ; . . . this wood cutts red, and is cut for bedsteads, 
tables and chests, and may be placed in the Catalogue of commod- 
ities.” (Force, Hist. Coll. ii. No. 5, 44.) 
“There are oaks of very close grain ; yea, harder than any in this 
There is Red-wood which 
being burned, smells very agreeably ; when men sit by the fire on 
When 
they keep watch by night against their enemies then they place it 
(the fire) in the centre of their huts to warm their feet by it ; they 
do not sit, then, up in the tree, but make a hole in the roof, and 
country, as thick as three or four men. 
benches made from it, the whole house is perfumed by it. 
keep watch there to prevent attacks.” (Documentary History of New 
York, iii. 40.) 
“ Juniper, which Cardanus saith is Cedar in hot Countries, and 
Juniper in cold Countries ; it is hear very dwarfish and shrubby, 
growing for the most part by the Seaside.” (Josselyn, New Eng- 
land Rarities, 95.) 
This probably relates in part to Juniperus communis. 
“ Juniper grows for the most part by the Sea-side, it bears abun- 
dance of skie-coloured berries fed upon by Partridges, and hath 
a woody root. ... They write that Juniper-coals preserve fire 
longest of any, keeping fire a whole year without supply, yet, the 
Indian never burns of it.’? (Josselyn, Account of Two Voyages 
to New England, 71.) 
8 Juniperus major Americana, Theatr. 1029 (in part). 
Cedrus Americana vulgo dicta. Juniperus Virginiana & Barbaden- 
sis, Ray, Hist. Pl. ii. 1413 (in part). 
Juniperus Virginiana Cupressi foliis rartoribus acutis Sabinam redo- 
lens, Plukenet, Alm. Bot. 201. 
Juniperus ; Virginiana. Folio ubique, Juniperino. Cedrus ; Vir- 
giniana, Boerhaave, Ind. Alt. Hort. Ludg. Bat. ii. 208.— Duha- 
mel, Traité des Arbres, 1. 322. 
Juniperus ; Virginiana ; foliis inferioribus juniperinis, superioribus 
Sabinam, vel Cypressum, referentibus, Boerhaave, 1. c. — Duhamel, J. c. 
Juniperus foliis basi adnatis : junioribus imbricatis, senioribus patu- 
lis, Linneus, Hort. Cliff. 464 (excl. syn. Plukenet & Sloane). — 
Royen, Fl. Leyd. Prodr. 90. — Clayton, Fl. Virgin. 194. 
9 Hort. Kew. iii. 414. — Loudon, Arb. Brit. iv. 2495, f. 2357. 
