244 
FLORA AND SYLVA 
the United States where it has a wider 
range than any other evergreen tree. It 
is a valuable tree with a maximum height 
of ICO feet and a bole diameter of 5 feet, 
and yet it usually passes as a tree of 
secondary size. Scattered throughout 
a large area of our country, it is found 
in great abundance in Tennessee, Ala- 
bama, and Florida, and reaches its finest 
development in the forests of the Red 
River Valley, Texas and Indian Terri- 
tory. In this (the eastern) part of West 
Virginia, it is the commonest of trees 
and indeed the only native evergreen, 
and perhaps no other tree varies so much 
as to size, form, colour of foliage, and 
general appearance. In the north it is 
usually found on cold dry uplands ; in 
the middle States on stiff clay soils bor- 
dering pasture-lands or on ridges left 
by the farmer where the soil is too rocky 
for tillage ; it also forms much of the 
undergrowth in our woods. For the 
Red Cedar will live in the shade of other 
trees, in clefts of the rockonsteep moun- 
tain sides, or in the swamps of Florida 
which are covered with water much of 
the year. Again whereas in fertile valleys 
of the south and middle States it is a 
broad-topped and dignified tree, on the 
limestone hills of this neighbourhood it 
becomes a meagre evergreen with sparse 
foliage, and upon the dry ridges still 
further north it is little more than a shrub 
and often nearly prostrate. This variety 
of form shows an adaptability to sur- 
roundings enabling it to live almost any- 
where over an immense tract of country, 
evenuponthesea-shoreandwithinreach 
of the salt spray, provided the soil is not 
too poor and sandy. 
In my experience its chiefdefect seems 
to be the sparse foliage, especially when 
trees are old or crowded. In the spring 
it recovers colour very slowly, for though 
the new growths are a lively green most 
of the leafage remains dull and dingy, 
thinly covering the rusty and rough- 
barked framework of trunk and limbs. 
But while this is true of old trees as found 
on poor and stony ground, young trees 
are often gracefully varied in outline and 
cheerful in colour, so that it is possible 
to make beautiful use of selected trees. 
In ornamental planting however, I have 
found that when past the beauty of youth 
old plants do not harmonise with ever- 
greens of brighter colour, though often 
exceedingly picturesque in their own 
gaunt way. Nature knows well how to 
use this tree in her wildest haunts, and 
from her we learn that one of the best 
uses that can be made of the Red Cedar 
is as a background or foil to gayer flower- 
ing- trees and shrubs. In the spring our 
woodlands hereabouts are lighted up by 
the large-flowered Dogwood (Cornus 
floridus) with its clusters of snowy white 
blossoms mingled with the rich rosy- 
purple of the Red- Bud (Cercis cana- 
densis). Thickets of these little trees 
are never so beautiful as when they stand 
againstabackgroundof rugged old Juni- 
pers with their rough bark and craggy 
limbs. Again, along our roadsides in 
the fall one passes group after group of 
them massed irregularly on the rocky 
slopes , some of them standing out spiry- 
topped against the sky-line, their trunks 
concealed and their branches mingled 
with trails of Virginia Creeper, turning 
blood-red in the autumn sunlight. Or 
