fHUIA OCCIDENTALIS. 261 



the privations he endured, doubtless exceeded theirs in a like propor- 

 tion. Very many of the beautiful plants introduced by him are still, 

 and will always continue to be, among the most deservedly admired 

 and the most prized of garden ornaments, but not one of which worth 

 mentioning, will perpetuate his name, or by any apparent sign keep in 

 remembrance his great achievements. This honour has been ungraciously 

 denied to him. It is not for us to call into question the strictness of 

 precedence in botanical nomenclature so much insisted upon. It is enough 

 to state the fact, but at the same time it is satisfactory to add that ° a 

 more appreciative application of personal names to plants now prevails.* 



Thuia OCCidentalis, the common or American Arbor Vitse. A 

 medium-sized tree, of pyramidal habit, from 40 to 50 feet in height. 

 It has a rapidly tapering trunk furnished with branches at irregular 

 intervals ; the secondary branches are numerous and frequently 

 drooping, and the tree is more or less dense in appearance accord- 

 ing to the soil in which it is growing. The foliage is brownish- 

 green, becoming browner on the approach of winter, and resuming 

 its green tint during the growing season. 



Eabitat. — Canada, the New England and Middle States ; " common 

 from Pennsylvania northwards, where it forms extensive Cedar 

 swamps; rare southwards along the Alleghanies.t" 



Introduced into England prior to 1597, in which year it is men- 

 tioned by Gerard as "growing in his garden very plentifully." \ 



Under the name of "Cedar," the timber of Tliuia occidentalis is much 

 used in Canada and the adjoining States for fencing and out-door car- 

 pentry. Mr. Eowan observes, § "That the wood of T. occidentalis is 

 most useful both to the settlers and the Indians. It grows generally 

 in wet places and on the banks of lakes and rivers, and is by no 

 means, a sign of bad land. There are hundreds of square miles of 

 Cedar forest in Lower Canada and New Brunswick, but, strange to say, 

 it does not grow in Nova Scotia. It is the lightest and most durable 

 of Canadian woods. A bridge made of it lasts for fifty years without 

 repair, and a fence for seventy or eighty. Exposed to the ah and clear 



* Since writing the above we have received from our respected correspondent, Professor 

 Sargent, of Harvard, Massachusetts, seeds of a Ribes from Vancouver's Island, labelled 

 Ribes Lobbi (Gray), but figured and described in the Botanical Magazine, Tab. 4931, under 

 the name of 11. subvestitwm. This is truly an amende honorable on the part of the dis- 

 tinguished American botanist, but this pretty shrub will hardly bear comparison with the 

 npble Thuia with which British horticulturists associate Lobb's name. 



t Dr. Asa Gray, Botany of the Nortliem States, p. 472, 



% Historie of Plants, p. 1369. 



§ The Emigrant and Sportsman in Canada, 



