141. LlBOCEDRUS DECURRENS CALIFORNIA WHITE CEDAR. 43 



HABITAT. California, from the Sacramento valley southward to the 

 southern border of the State, growing along streams and rich bottom- 

 lands. " Common from 2,000 ft. altitude on the southern slope of the 

 San Bernardino Eange to the Coast, and on Santa Catlina Island."* 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood light, soft, moderately tough, close- 

 grained, compact, with light reddish-brown heart- wood and pinkish- 

 white sap-wood. Specific Gravity, 0.4872; Percentage of Ash, 0.58; 

 Relative Approximate Fuel Value, 0.4844 ; Coefficient of Elasticity, 

 48828 ; Modulus of Rupture, 644 ; Resistance to Longitudinal Pressure, 

 319 ; Resistance to Indentation, 118 ; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 

 30.36. 



USES. Little use is made of this wood except in southern California 

 for fuel. 



MEDICINAL PROPERTIES of an astringent and tonic nature are com- 

 mon to the genus and mentioned of the Salix nigra, Part II, p. 36-37. 



GYMNOSPERMJE. 



Flowering, exogenous plants with leaves chiefly parallel-veined and cotyledons 

 frequently more than two. Flowers diclinous and very incomplete ; pistil repre- 

 sented by an open scale or leaf, or altogether wanting, with ovules naked, fertilized 

 by direct contact with the pollen, and seeds at maturity naked without a true 

 pericarp. 



ORDER CONIFERJE : PINE FAMILY. 



Leaves mostly awl-shaped or needle-shaped, evergreen, entire and parallel-veined. 

 Flowers monoecious, or rarely dioecious, in catkins or cones, destitute of both calyx 

 and corolla ; stamens one or several (usually united); ovary, style and stigma want- 

 ing ; ovules one or several at the base of a scale, which serves as a carpel, or on an 

 open disk. Fruit a cone, woody and witli distinct scales, or somewhat berry-like, 

 and with fleshy coherent scales, seeds orthotopous, embryo in the axis of the 

 albumen. 



Trees or shrubs with a resinous juice. 



GENUS LlBOCEDRUS, EDLICHER. 



Leaves evergreen, small and scale-like, decussately opposite, closely imbricated, 

 appressed and making a rather flat branchlet. Flowers monoecious, in terminal 

 aments, with decussately opposite scales ; staminate flowers very numerous, small, 

 with 12 or more rounded filament-scales, beneath each of which are 3-4 introrse 

 anthers ; pollen grains simple : pistillate aments terminating shorter branchlets, with 

 few, 4-6 carpellary scales without bracts. Fruit small, cones maturing the first 

 year, not reflexed, of 4-6 thick valvate coriaceous scales, the lowest pair small and 

 sterile, the third pair when present also sterile and connate and the middle pair 

 bearing in its axils each two unequally 2-winged orthotropous erect seeds ; cotyle- 

 dons 2. 



A genus of very few species, only one of which is North American and the name 

 is the Greek for Incense Cedar. 



S. B. Parish, " Trees of Southern California," p. 347. 



