240. CHAMAECYPARIS NOOTKATENSIS ALASKA CEDAR. 39 



Emory Oaks, etc., but occasionally forming quite exclusive tracts of 

 forests. 



PHYSICAL PROPERTIES. Wood very light, soft, close-grained, easily 

 worked and of an orange-brown color with lighter sap wood. Specific 

 Gravity, 0.4843; Weight of a Cubic Foot in Pounds, 30.18.* 



USES. We believe little use has been made of this timber owing 

 to the sparseness of populations in the regions in which it grows, 

 though possessed of useful properties. The tree is grown to some 

 extent for ornamental purposes and proves to be hardy in England. 



GENUS CHAMAECYPARIS, SPACH. 



Leaves evergreen, very small, scale-like, imbricated and closely appressed, or on 

 vigorous shoots awl-shaped and free; leaf-buds not scaly; branchlets distichous 

 and finely divided. Flowers monoecious, in small, terminal, few-flowered 

 catkins. Sterile catkins ovoid, with filaments in the form of shield-shaped scales, 

 each bearing beneath its lower margin 2-4 anther-cells, opening lengthwise. 

 Fertile catkins globose with shield-shaped scales decussate, each bearing at its 

 base several bottle-shaped, orthotropous ovules. Fruit a small, spherical cone, 

 the thick, shield-shaped scales of which are furnished with a point or boss in the 

 center, and fit closely together along their margins until maturity, when they 

 open and liberate their angled or somewhat winged seeds; cotyledons 2-3. 



(C hamaecyparis is from the Greek x*! 10 - 1 * on the ground, and 

 cypress.) 



240. CHAMAECYPARIS NOOTKATENSIS (LAMB) SPACH. 



ALASKA CEDAR, YELLOW CEDAR, SITKA CYPRESS. 

 Ger., Gelbe Zeder ; Fr., Cedrejaune; Sp., Cedro amarillo. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS: Leaves about % in. long, with rather long rounded 

 points, entire, eglandular or glandular-pitted on the back, dark blue-green, 

 closely appressed and forming a slightly flattened branchlet, the leaves of vigorous 

 shoots sometimes in. long, with sharp points, and on small seedling are from 

 \-% in. long, acicular, spreading and lighter green. Flowers, very early spring, 

 terminating lateral branchlets of the previous season, the staminate on those 

 lower down and the pistillate on the more terminal branchlets; staminate flowers 

 nearly oblong, ^ in. in length, with four or five pairs of stamens; connectives 

 yellow with dark blotch, each bearing two or three pollen sacs; pistillate flowers 

 about T V in. long; purplish brown with acute spreading scales, each bearing at its 

 base 2-4 ovules. Fruit (Sept. and Oct.) a subglobose dark reddish brown cone, 

 maturing the first year, nearly ^ in. in diameter, glaucous, with 4-6 scales each 

 with a prominent pointed boss and frequently resin glands; seeds slightly flat- 

 tened ovoid, acute, about in. long, dark brown and with wings of lighter shade 

 nearly twice as broad as the seed. 



The specific name is from Nootka, the name of the sound on the shores of 

 which this tree was discovered by the Scotch naturalist, Archibald Menzies, a 

 little over a century ago. 



The Alaska Cedar sometimes attains the height of 100 ft. (30 m. ) or 

 more, with narrow pyramidal head of horizontal and geotropic 

 branches and crowded distichous sprays, with a trunk 5 or 6 ft. 

 (1.80 m.) in diameter. It is vested in a grayish or purplish brown 

 bark fissured into wide longitudinal ridges which exfoliate in long thin 



* Sargent's Silva of North America, X, p. 105. 



