34 BULLETIN 680, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



it as "giant arborvitse." 46 Northwestern woodsmen also call it 

 "canoe cedar/' because the Indians use the easily worked big trunks 

 for canoes. The name "red cedar" is fairly applicable to the dull, 

 slightly reddish brown wood, but use of the name for Thuja plicata 

 would at once confuse this species with the eastern red cedar 

 (Juniperus virginiana), which has really red wood, and was dis- 

 covered nearly a century before the western cedar became known to 

 science. It seems best, however, to adopt the common name western 

 red cedar for Thuja plicata in order to avoid confusion that would 

 result from applying the name "red cedar" to two different trees. 



Western red cedar was first discovered by Luis Nee on Nootka 

 Sound some time during the years 1789 to 1794, 47 in which Nee served 

 as one of the botanists who accompanied the Spanish explorer 

 Malaspina in his voyage around the world. Two years later (1796), 

 Archibald Manzies found it on Vancouver Island while he was serving 

 as surgeon to Capt. Vancouver on the latter's voyage to the North- 

 west coast. It was probably later introduced from this region into 

 European gardens, where it appears to have been cultivated long 

 before it became known to botanists. 



The first technical name applied to the western red cedar is "Thuya 

 plicata" of D. Don, who properly published it in 1811, although in 

 1807 James Donn published the bare name Thuya plicata (without a 

 description), and attached it to Nee's original specimen of this cedar. 

 Thuja 48 plicata is, therefore, the technical name by which western 

 red cedar should now be known. Western red cedar was, however, 

 long and exclusively known to botanists as "Thuya gigantea Nut- 

 tall," a name which was established in 1834, 23 years after "Thuya 

 plicata" was published. The latter name was not restored to use at 

 an earlier date chiefly because the plants cultivated as "Thuya 

 plicata" in European gardens were believed to represent more nearly 

 forms of our northeastern white cedar (T. occidentalis) than of the 

 western red cedar. 



Just when Thuja plicata was first discovered in the Rocky Moun- 

 tain region is unknown. Probably, however, it was in about 1832 or 

 1833, and doubtless Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was the first American 

 collector to secure botanical specimens of the tree in that region. 

 Thomas Nuttall, 49 who described Wyeth' s specimens, informs us that 

 Wyeth's collection of plants, including western red cedar, was ob- 

 tained "chiefly in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains or Northern 



* 6 A common name coined from the technical name Thuja gigantea. formerly applied to this species but 

 now replaced by T. plicata, the oldest name for the tree. 



« M. T. Masters,, in Gard. Chron. XXI, 3d Series, 101, 214, 1897, the specimen collected by Nee being 

 preserved in the Natural History Museum at South Kensington, England. 



48 Linnaeus' later spelling, Thuja (Hort. Cliff, and Spec. Plantarum, 1737, 1753), is here maintained in 

 place of the first spelling, Thuya. 



• Journal of the Academy of Natural Sciences, VII, part 1, 5, 1834. 



