96 



The Arbor- Vitaes 



2. CANOE CEDAR — Thuja pHcata D. Don 



Thuja gigantea Nuttall 



A noble tree of the moist bottom lands or stream-banks of the Northwest, 

 where it grows in small groves or as individual specimens, not fonning extensive 

 forests by itself. Sometimes on dryish mountain sides, where it ascends to an alti- 

 tude of 1800 meters, it is reduced to a shrub. It is known from Alaska to central 

 California, eastward to the western slope of the Rocky Moxmtains of Idaho and 

 Montana. Its maximum height is 75 meters, with a trunk diameter of 1.8 m. 

 above the broad buttressed base. 



The trunk is tall, straight, and slender, with immense buttresses sometimes 

 5 m. across, above which it tapers gradually. The branches are mostly short, 

 horizontal, with drooping ends, often clothing the trunk from base to apex, form- 

 ing a dense, narrowly conic tree. The bark is 12 to 18 irnn. thick, irregularly 

 and shallowly fissured into broad, roimded ridges, and separates into long, nar- 

 row, fibrous shreds of a bright brownish red color. The twigs are 4-sided, much 



flattened, sometimes zigzag, light 

 yellowish green at first, becoming 

 reddish brown, and finally often 

 purplish and shining. Most of the 

 lateral twigs fall off after becoming 

 two or three years old. The leaves 

 are bright green and shining, ovate, 

 about 6 mm. long, long-pointed, 

 and glandular on the back, those 

 on the lateral twigs half as long, 

 ovate, short-pointed, and scarcely 

 glandular. The flowers are brown- 

 ish and about 2 mm. long. The 

 cones, which ripen in early autumn, 

 are near the ends of the branches, 

 in small clusters, 12 to 18 nun. 

 long; their scales are leathery, 

 thick-tipped, often with a stout, 

 short bristle. The seeds are borne 

 under several of the central scales, 

 2 or sometimes 3 imder each; they are about 6 mm. long; their wings project 

 beyond the apex of the seed, and are divergent at the apex. 



The wood of the Canoe cedar is soft, rather weak, brittle, and coarse-grained, 

 red-brown, with a specific gravity of about 0.38. It is very durable, and is used 

 for general building purposes, fence-posts, furniture, in cooperage, and for tele- 

 graph poles. The northwestern Indians used it for their dug-out canoes and 

 totem poles; they also make the inner bark into ropes, blankets, and thatch. As 



Fig. 72. — Canoe Cedar. 



