BOTANY. 
63 
The individuals which we saw of the species were not handsome. They formed trees of 
moderate size, having much the appearance of Thuja occidentalis when growing under the most 
unfavorable circumstances. The trunk was gnarled and twisted, and set with dead branches ; 
the foliage sparse and ragged, and the whole aspect disagreeable. The galbules, which were 
numerous, were something larger than a pea, aud composed of four scales ; from the centre of 
each a point projects. 
Fig. 28. 
Fig. 28. Branch and galbules of C. Nutkatensis, natural size. 
The locality where we found this tree was near the snow line, and it is possible that it was 
dwarfed and deformed by the severities of the climate. It is found on the low lands near the 
coast and on Vancouver’s island. Cupressus Lawsoniana, described by Mr. Murray, ( Eclinb . 
Neio Philos. Jour., 1855,) is closely allied to this species, but differs from it in having six scales 
Libocedrus decurrens. The California white cedar. 
L. decurrens, Torrey in Smithsonian Contrib. 6, p. 7, t. 3. 
This tree is very extensively distributed over California and southern Oregon, where it is 
found in nearly alff parts of the mountains of the interior. We found it more abundant and 
attaining the greatest size at McCumber’s, in northern California. It there rivals even the sugar 
pine in diameter of trunk, though never obtaining an equal altitude. Many of the white cedars 
about McCumber’s are six to seven feet in diameter three feet above the ground, with an altitude 
of more than one hundred feet. 
The general aspect of the tree is strikingly like that of Thuya occidentalis as it grows about 
Lake Superior. The general form conical; the trunk angular, or at least not cylindrical ; the 
bark fibrous, and the lower part of the trunk usually bristling with the dead but persistent 
branches. The foliage is also very like in its general aspect to that of the tree referred to, and 
the wood is of similar character and of about equal economical value. I noticed about 
McCumber’s that the trees cut for the saw-mills, though externally apparently sound and 
healthful, were affected by a singular kind of dry-rot, by which the trunk was honeycombed 
