of New York 



39 



ARBOR VITAE 



Thuja occidentalis, Linnaeus 



THE ARBOR VlTAE, also called White Cedar and Cedar, is 

 one of the most widely planted evergreen trees in North 

 America. It develops a conical symmetrical crown and usu- 

 ally reaches a height of 25 to 50 feet. 



The leaves are scale-like, ] /g of an inch long, closely ovcr- 



ARBOR VITAE 



One-half natural size. 



lap one another, are aromatic when crushed, marked with 

 glandular dots. They are arranged in pairs. Each succeed- 

 ing pair alternates with the next pair. 



The cones are oblong, l /i of an inch long, with 6 to 12 

 blunt-pointed, reddish-brown scales. 



The trunk usually divides near the base. The bark is 

 grayish to reddish-brown, usually furrowed, and peels off 

 into thin shred- like strips. 



The Arbor Vitae is found from Southern Labrador west to 

 Manitoba and Minnesota and south to North Carolina. This 

 tree is common on wet calcareous soils throughout northern 

 New York. Locally it forms part of impenetrable "cedar 

 swamps." It is rare southward to West Chester county, and 

 westward to Lake Erie. More than 50 garden varieties of 

 Arbor Vitae are known. Some of them, such as White 

 Arbor Vitae and the Golden Arbor Vitae, are distinguished 

 by their color. Among the commonest forms are the pyram- 

 idal, the globose, the juvenile, and the pendulous form. 

 Closely related to the native Arbor Vitae is the Oriental Ar- 

 bor Vitae planted extensively throughout eastern North 

 America. 



