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18 Cornell Junior Extension Bulletin 26 



9. ARBOR VITAE 



White Cedar 

 (Thuja Occident alls Linnaeus) 

 Arbor vitcte (meaning "tree of life") is a medium-sized, slow-grow- 

 ing forest tree rather common in the northeastern part of the State, less 

 frequent in the central and western parts. Dense arbor-vitae swamps are 



common in Madison 

 County and northward 

 and eastward. In the 

 Adirondack region it also 

 occurs frequently outside 

 the swamps. The wood is 

 light, soft, brittle, coarse- 

 grained, light yellowish 

 brown in color, and dur- 

 able in contact with the 

 soil. It is used exten- 

 sively for fence posts and 

 small poles. 



Bark — ashy gray to 

 light reddish brown, sep- 

 arating in long, narrow, 

 flat, shreddy strips, often 

 more or less spirally 

 twisted. 



Twigs — decidedly flat- 

 tened, arranged in fan- 

 shaped clusters, and not to be confused with the leaves which cover the 

 last season's growth; with the death of the leaves in the second season, 

 the twigs become reddish brown in color and shiny. 



Winter buds — extremely minute, almost covered by the scale-like 

 leaves. 



Leaves — scale-like, yellowish green in color, aromatic when crushed, 

 borne in pairs closely overlapping; on leaves of leading shoots, glandular 

 dot conspicuous in center of leaf. 



Fruit — An oblong, erect cone, % inch long, reddish brown in color, 

 persists through the winter. Cone scales — from 6 to 12, open to the base 

 at maturity in autumn of the first season. Seeds — % inch long, in pairs, 

 nearly surrounded by broad wings. 



9a. The name white cedar properly belongs to a Coastal Plain tree, 

 Chamaecyparis thyoides, closely resembling the arbor vitae. 



ARBOR VITAE 



Natural size 



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