PINE FAMILY 



RED CEDAR. SAVIN 



Juniperus virginidna. 



Evergreen, varying from a shrub to a tree one hundred feet high, 

 which is conical when young but cylindrical or irregular in old age. 

 Ranges from Nova Scotia south to Florida, westward to British Co- 

 lumbia and east of the Rocl^y Mountains to Mexico. Tolerant of 

 many soils and varied locations. Roots fibrous. 



Bark. — Light reddish brown, scaly or stringy. Branchlets slender 

 and four-angled but after the disappearance of the leaves become 

 terete and are covered with close, darl: brown bark tinged with red 

 or gray. 



Wood. — Bright red, fading with exposure to air, sapwood nearly 

 white ; fragrant, light, soft, close-grained, weak, durable in contact 

 with the soil. Largely used for posts, railway ties, interior finish of 

 houses, chests and closets in which woollens are preserved against 

 attack of moths, cabinet-making and lead pencils. Sp. gr., 0.4826; 

 weight of cu. ft., 30.70 lbs. 



Leaves. — Opposite, of two kinds; awl-shaped and loose, scale- 

 shaped, appressed, imbricated, and crowded. The awl-shaped ap- 

 pear on young plants and vigorous branches, are linear-lanceolate, 

 long-pointed, light yellow green, one-half to three-fourths an inch 

 long. The scale-shaped are closely appressed, acute, occasionally 

 obtuse, rounded, often glandular in the back, entire, about one-six- 

 teenth of an inch long, dark blue green, glaucous, turning brownish 

 during the winter at the north, beginning in the third season to grow 

 hard and woody and persisting two or three years longer on the 

 branches. They are four-ranked, making the twig appear quad- 

 rangular. 



Flowers. — April, May; terminal on short axillary branches ; dioe- 

 cious rarely monoecious. .Staminate flowers consist of four to six 

 sliield-like scales each bearing about four or five yellow pollen sacs. 

 Pistillate flowers minute consisting of about three pairs of fleshy, 

 oblong, bluish scales, united at base, and bearing two ovules. Scales 

 are obliterated in the fruit. 



Fruit. — Matures in first or second season. Berry-like strobile, 

 subglobose, one-third to one-fouith of an inch in diameter, pale 

 green covered with white bloom, when fully grown, dark blue and 

 glaucous at maturity ; flesh sweet, resinous ; seeds two to three. 



The Red Cedar grows throughout the United States. It 

 reaches its largest size in the swamps and rich alluvial bot- 

 tom lands of the southern and southwestern states, but in the 



496 



